Anything For You
by KukkiaKipu
Summary: Childhood friends Flora and Helia have been apart for six years, but what happens when they come back into each others lives? Flora meets new eccentric friends and digs up old feelings.
1. Chapter 1

Okay, so here it is! My new story :3 It's like a gain inspiration for a new one as soon as I finish one…

There have been a couple of Flora x Helia fanfics where they have been childhood friends, so I wanted to give it a try myself! I thought I might as well seeing as I know have 18 fanfics, all of which including FxH rom. How strange… I've been doing this for almost four years now! I hope I've improved since my first story 0.o

Anyway, if you've seen the film a _Boy Girl Thing_, the layout is kind of like that… But this story is not based on that film, because I _kind of _hate that film. (It's the kind of thing you think should be a chick flick, but it is so not. It's like a chick flick that wasn't meant to be.)

Enjoy! Oh! And also, because of my crazy Evanescence obsession, I will be naming all my stories after their songs from here on out. And this one: Anything For you. _I'll believe, all your lies, just pretend you love me, make believe, close your eyes, I'll be anything for you… _GOTTA LOVE DAT SONG. It may have almost nothing to do with the story, but I do not care.

Anyway, this shall be a magic-free story, and I hope you enjoy the socks off it!

_**Disclaimer: **__By now, you should have probably realised that I am not Ignio Straffi, as much as I wish I was (sigh) … (But not really though)_

**Anything For You**

"_But what if they're mean?" five year old Flora asked her mother, Julianna. The new neighbours' had moved in the day before, and not wanting to disturb them with the stress of all the moving on the day, they decided to introduce themselves the day after._

"_Flora, there's no need to be shy!" her mother laughed, "Your father may be at work but you can be confident with just me with you,"_

"… _But what if they're mean?" she repeated again._

"_You have nothing to be nervous about! You look adorable in your little dress and with those pigtails, so flaunt it!"_

"…_Flaunt what?" she asked her mother as she took a hold of her hand tightly. Her mother just sighed as she rang the doorbell._

_A pretty petite woman with straight, jet-black hair answered the door and gave the little girl and her mother a warm smile._

"_Hello!" Flora's mother greeted, "I'm Julianna, but you can call me Julie. We live next door and we thought that we should introduce ourselves,"_

"_My name's Laurel, and I just moved in yesterday with my son and my husband, if you hadn't noticed," she laughed, "My husband, Josh, his work got moved so, well, we had to move too. Poor Helia had to leave all his friends,"_

"_Helia?"_

"_My son, just turned seven,"_

"_Oh, well, my Flora's about the same age, six," Julianna said as she gestured to the little girl clinging on to her mother's hand and semi-standing behind her._

"_Flora," Laurel said as she crouched to Flora's level, "What a pretty name. Aren't you adorable! If I had ever had a daughter, I'd want her to dress and present herself just like you! I love your hair, it's very cute,"_

"_Thank you," Flora squeaked quietly._

"_So anyway," Laurel said as she stood back up, "As I was saying, Josh has already started work, leaving my to all these wonderful boxes," she laughed._

"_My husband's working over time, leaving me with all the chores and child care. I've been put in my place as a woman." Julianna laughed._

"_MEN," they said together, laughing again afterwards. Flora's big green eyes danced between the two of them; she didn't understand the conversation or why they were laughing so much._

"_Would you like to come in for some coffee? I was about to have a gallon of the stuff, seeing as I'm going to need it," Laurel offered._

"_That sounds lovely! And I'll be happy to help with any unpacking you have to do," Julianna replied._

"_Well, I would politely decline your help, but I would love that SO MUCH."_

_Julianna and Flora walked into to the house and into their kitchen._

"_How about I take you up to Helia then, Flora? You'll get bored down here with all the grown up talk," Laurel suggested._

"_Mmm-mm," Flora murmured, as she held on to her mother's hand tighter._

"_Go on Flora, it'll be nice to make a new friend," Julianna smiled. Flora didn't respond. "She's never shy at home, it's like she's a completely different person whenever we go anywhere, and she's awfully shy at school."_

"_Helia's a very sweet boy, I'm sure you'll like him." Laurel smiled encouragingly._

"… _Boy's are stupid…" Flora said into her mother's arm, making both of the women burst out laughing._

"_Listen, do you like lemonade?" Laurel asked the small girl, who reluctantly nodded._

"_How about I take up some lemonade and crisps for you and Helia, hm?" she asked Flora, who nodded again._

"_Okay," Flora said weakly. Laurel held out her hand to her._

"_Come on dear, you can help me get everything together…"_

_~.~.~.~.~.~_

"_Helia honey, the neighbour's are here," Laurel opened the door to her son's room, struggling with both the tray of snacks and Flora's hand. Helia turned around from his desk and put his pencil down. He had scruffy hair, the same shade as his mother's, and big aqua-blue eyes, and he was wearing an orange hoodie. "This is Flora, you two are just about the same age. I have some snacks here for the two of you-," she set down the tray on the floor, "Don't spill anything on the carpet, and Helia, she's quite shy, so make her feel welcome," Laurel shut the door softly behind Flora, leaving her standing awkwardly in front of Helia._

"_Hi," he said quietly._

"_Hi," she squeaked back._

"_Um… How old are you?" he asked._

"_Six. How old are you?"_

"_I turned seven a few days ago,"_

"_Happy Birthday for then… Did you have fun?" she asked._

"_Yeah, it was a half goodbye and half birthday party."_

"_Oh, cool,"_

"_Want some lemonade?" he asked, gesturing to the tray on the floor. She nodded and kneeled down next down to it. He sat down next to her._

"_What school are you going to go to?" she asked him._

"_The one around the corner, saint something…"_

"_Saint James? That's the one I go to,"_

"_Cool, are your friends nice?" he asked, handing her a cup._

"_Um… I don't have… Many friends…" she said quietly._

"_Oh," he said, picking up a cup himself. Flora took a sip of her lemonade and pursed her lips and shut her eyes tightly before taking a big gulp._

"_Fizzy," she sighed. Helia couldn't help but laugh._

"_You're funny,"_

_~.~.~.~.~_

"_YOU STEPPED ON THE FLOOR! YOU HAVE TO DROWN IN LAVA!" Flora squealed as she jumped up and down on Helia's bed. Helia dramatically fell into the carpet. "I WIN!" Flora exclaimed._

"_Well I won 'who can stand up the longest after spinning for three minutes' contest and I won Twister so I WIN overall!" he exclaimed back._

"_Well you know what?"_

"_What?" Helia said with his hands on his hips. Flora threw a pillow at him._

"_That's what." She said proudly._

"_Flora! It's almost nine o'clock! We'd better go!" her mother called from downstairs._

"_MUM! I DON'T WANT TO GO!" she called back._

"_Your father will be wondering where we are! And besides, it's past your bedtime!" Flora looked at Helia and sighed sadly. They walked downstairs and Flora put her shoes back on._

"_We were wondering if you two wanted to go swimming together tomorrow, what do you say?" Laurel asked the two children._

"_YEAH!" they said together._

"_Great!" Julianna said warmly, "It's been great meeting you Laurel, see you tomorrow."_

_~.~.~_

_After a while, the two families became more of a sort of family. They spent Christmas, New Years, birthdays and every other special occasion together. At school, Flora would cling to Helia incessantly, and he would always stand up for her if any of the other children teased her. She was an easy target, seeing as she was so quiet around everyone else at school._

_During the summer, they would always go on vacation together. Every Sunday they would have dinner together. And everyday, Flora and Helia would see each other._

_A few years later, when Flora turned ten and Helia was eleven, Flora's father's work got moved halfway across the world. They had to say goodbye to one another, which was very hard for both families. They decided to let the house to tenants, and because 'the man of the house' was always busy with work, Julianna had to play as the landlord, which was extra stressful for her. With both of her parents always busy, and so far away from anyone she knew, Flora grew even more timid than she ever was before._

_Helia and Flora would call each other everyday, but the bills soon added up and the calls got less and less frequent._

Six years had passed. Helia was still living in the same town, attending high school.

Flora was attending an international school. In the six years of living there, she had not made one single close friend; sure, she had friendly acquaintances and she had been asked out by a fair amount of people, but she always declined. It never felt right to her.

A position opened at a law firm back in their hometown, with equal pay. Flora's dad jumped at the chance and got the job, they started packing up their things to move back into their old house.

_**A/N ~**_

_Okay! Prologue/first chapter - done-ito! Hope you guys like it, and the next chapter will be up very soon. I promise on my SOUL._

_Tell me what you think, and review!_


	2. Chapter 2

I'm really happy with the feedback so far! You all seem to like the idea :D

It took me forever to work out the flipping summary the other day, I may change it but… I seriously cannot be bothered.

Also, I'm so sorry for all the name confusion in the first chapter, I'm going to try and change it, but Flora's mother's name is Julianna (Julie for short) and NOT Lily. (seriously brain, what are you like…)

In response to one of the anonymous reviews: (ahem) I never said anything about, nor will I ever be writing a sex scene. I have no clue where that came from.

**Anything For You**

"_I can't believe you have to move so far away…" eleven-year-old Helia sat on the floor next to ten-year-old Flora, in her empty bedroom._

"_What am I going to do without you?" Flora asked, putting her arms around his shoulders. "I can't function normally with regular human beings!"_

"_You can't function normally at all," Helia smirked, earning a smack around the head from Flora._

"_I will miss you, you know," Flora sighed sadly, "Like actually really very much,"_

"_You know I'll miss you too," said Helia, "and that didn't make sense,"_

"_Well YOU can get out of my face!" she said, smacking him around the back of the head again. "But… we'll talk every other day, right?"_

"_Right."_

"_Promise?"_

"_I promise on your soul."_

"_You know I'm not going to stop hitting you, right?"_

Helia was walking home from school with his headphones in his ears. He didn't know what had made him think of the day that Flora had moved away; from time to time he had to have a bit of a solo reminiscing session, because none of his friends really understood. It had been such a long time. He had to wonder what she had been up to without him, seeing as when they lived next door to each other, they spent every single waking hour together. It annoyed him that he couldn't protect her like he used to: because if you messed with sweet little Flora, then you were in serious trouble with Helia. He turned the corner into his road, but there was something different today. An enormous moving van was parked outside of the house next door to him.

_Not new neighbours… _he thought sadly. The last tenants had found that the best time to mow their lawn was at four in the morning, and the one before that was a single middle-aged man, who found much pleasure in staring at his mother through the window whenever he could. His mother was still paranoid about it.

His phone vibrated, so he reached into his pocket and took it out.

_hey helia u big frek, movies and pizza mi place 2mrrw? Riv + Stell wll b ther. no1 else cud mk it cuz ov detnsion. c u thn stpud fc. luv Musa xoxoxoxoxox ps pls dnt txt mi bk cuz im gutrr rite now xx_

Helia squinted in order to read the poorly written text from one of his best, and apparently most intelligent friends. _Detnsion? _Oh, DETENTION. Helia still couldn't believe that the only people who had avoided the detention out of the eleven of them were Musa, Stella, Riven and himself. He had gotten an A on his essay, and Musa had gotten an A star. Everyone else got Ds and Fs for some weird reason, but Riven managed to scrounge himself a B and Stella a C plus. This was really weird, because neither of them cared about the essay. No one cared about that particular essay. Not even Timmy. They were testing everyone's patience by asking them to write a 2500 word essay on the question '_Explain the colour blue,' _Anyway, half the class ended up with a weeks detention for 'not actually trying'. Stella's exact words were: '_all it asked me to do was talk about blue, so I did. I have no clue why I got a half-decent grade though, I mean blue is SO not my colour_,' and Riven's exact words were: '_Yeah, what Stella said, apart from the stuff she said after I stopped listening_.'

As Helia approached home, he saw his mother anxiously standing out on the drive with his father, which was odd because he was meant to be in the city.

"Dad? Why aren't you at work? What's going on?" Helia asked them both.

"I had to take the day off for this," his father replied with a smile. His mother couldn't hide her grin either.

"The Linphea's are moving back today! We found out this morning, isn't it exciting? They should be here any minute!" she squealed excitedly.

"The Linphea's?" Helia paused and let the surname sink in, "What? Seriously?! Are you kidding?!" Helia exclaimed, grasping his mother's hands and almost jumping up and down in excitement.

"Of course I'm not joking you moron!" Laurel grinned, "Oh my gosh I can't wait to see Julie again…" she said, anxiously looking up and down the road.

"It'll be good to see Mark again," Helia's father, Josh, nodded in agreement. Laurel rolled her eyes and hit his arm lightly.

"What is up with men and hiding their emotions?"

A familiar car drove down the road, and once it noticed the family standing outside it honked loudly on the horn, a window rolled down and a woman with tanned skin and long, dark brown hair leaned out, waving like crazy.

"OH MY GOSH THAT'S THEM!" Laurel yelled. Julie ran out of the car the moment it stopped.

"LAUREL LAUREL LAUREL LAUREL LAUREL LAUREL!" she screamed. The jumped into each other's arms and hugged each other tightly.

"JULIE! IT HAS BEEN SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO LONG!" Laurel screamed.

"PLEASE tell me we are going to have Julie and Laurel's wine, Italian, chocolate and romantic movie night as soon as possible!"

"OH YOU KNOW IT SISTER!" Laurel screamed again. Julianna turned her attention to Helia.

"That's not… That _can't _be Helia, can it?" she said cautiously.

"Um, yeah, it's me," he said quietly, he was still a little shocked by the whole situation.

"NO WAAAAAAY!" she exclaimed, running up to him and giving him a big cuddle. "LOOK AT YOU! Aren't you handsome? And your hair is so long, wow…"

"It's really great to see you again Julianna, you haven't changed a bit," he laughed.

"Do I not look six years older?"

"What? Of course not!"

"CORRECT ANSWER! SUCH A CHARMER YOU ARE!" she said as she ruffled his hair.

Mark walked out of the car and walked up to Josh, the two of them shared a manly reunion by briskly patting each other on the back.

"Men," Julianna rolled her eyes, "Would it _kill _you to share a big, soppy hug? Just this once?" Laurel pushed them together, and pretty much forced a hug of them.

"Pointless," Laurel shrugged.

The back door of the car opened and Helia couldn't believe his eyes. Two long, tanned legs stepped delicately out of the car; the cute little Flora that he remembered had _definitely _grown up. She was wearing denim shorts that were showing off her sun kissed skin. She had a chiffon pink shirt on and had her long silky, caramel locks tied up in high a ponytail with a pale pink ribbon. She was a lot taller than he had remembered, still shorter than him, but it was like she had almost grown a metre in the last six years. She looked… Incredible. Obviously when he was younger he had never really looked at her the way he found himself looking at her today.

"Flooooooraaaa, look at you! You drop-dead gorgeous!" Laurel ran up to her and gave her a big hug. "I BET you have a boyfriend now, you MUST have one,"

"Well, I, uh- no, actually…" she squeaked quietly.

"DOESN'T FLORA LOOK BEAUTIFUL, HELIA?" Laurel asked her son loudly, jabbing him in the side with her elbow.

"Helia? That _can't be _you, can it?" Flora asked gently, walking over to him and examining his face, "NO WAY!" she threw her arms around him and gave him one of the tightest hugs he had ever experienced. " Um, hi," she quickly retracted and grinned shyly.

"Flora, you… you look…" Helia struggled to say. Was it crossing a boundary to tell her that she looked nice? Why was he suddenly so worried about boundaries? "I can't believe it…"

"Sorry Flora dear, he literally found out that you'd be coming back about two minutes ago, he's speechless, aren't you dearie?" Laurel said as she pinched her son's cheek. Helia brushed her off and laughed, but his phone started ringing.

"Oh, sorry, one second," Helia looked at the screen to see Stella's name flashing as well as the selfie she took of herself when she stole his phone one time. "Stella?" he asked, putting the phone to his ear.

"_Oh my gosh Helia, you have NO CLUE how BORED I am."_

"I'm really sorry Stell, but I'm kind bus-,"

"_What do you guys DO while I'm in detention? Seriously! I have NOTHING to do!"_

"Maybe you could try calling Musa? I'm actually bus-,"

"_Of course I've tried calling Musa! She's at her frickin' calligraphy class or something…"_

"… You mean her guitar lesson?"

"_Yeah that,"_

"She doesn't even take calligraphy class, how on earth did you mix up guitar lessons and calligraphy class?"

"_It's hard to make any sense when you're THIS BORED. Wanna meet up?"_

"I keep trying to say that I'm busy right now," Helia sighed, loosing patience. Flora looked a little taken aback during their conversation. Shifting from foot to foot, she looked at Laurel.

"Uhm, who is that?" she asked cautiously.

"_WAS THAT A GIRLS' VOICE I HEARD?!" _Stella screamed on the other line, making Helia hold the phone away from his ear. Flora took a small step backwards; she hadn't realised that the small little squeak she had made would set off an explosion.

"Stell, I'll see you tomorrow. Maybe you should… I dunno, go shopping or something."

"_With WHO?"_

"Have you tried Riven yet?"

"_Hey, perfect! See ya! Mwah!" _and then a loud beeping followed. Helia prayed that Riven wouldn't kill him for giving Stella that idea, but, surely enough his phone vibrated not ten seconds later.

_DUDE U R SO DEAD. - Riv_

Well, so much for that.

"Sorry about that," he apologised. "That was Stella, one of my uh… very eccentric friends."

"Helia has the biggest, closest friendship group that I have ever seen. There are eleven of them. ELEVEN." Said Laurel.

"Wow…" said Flora.

"Yep, and I'm the eleventh wheel," Helia laughed, "It's five girls, five guys and they're all with each other… If that makes sense,"

"Will I be able to meet any of them sometime?" Flora smiled.

"Of course,"

"How about we go inside," Laurel said as she put her arms around the two of them, "You guys look like you could use some lemonade and crisps,"

_~A/N~_

_Sorry about the lack of eventfulness- but I swear, this story is just getting into gear!_

_Happy New Year everyone!_


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again ^^ I had a little bit of trouble with this chap, it's a bit longer than my regular chapters but it's still a little bitty for my liking x

**Anything For You**

"Are you ready to go?" Helia asked, standing out on Flora's doorstep.

"Sure, just one minute I need to find my shoes," Flora smiled, and then scurried off to find her converse in one of the many boxes scattered about the place. Helia couldn't help but notice her appearance- it was very edgy. She was wearing a pair of light denim ripped skinny jeans that showed off an awful lot of leg, and she was wearing a grey cropped t-shirt which said 'peace' on it, revealing her delicate figure. Her hair was once again in a high ponytail. Helia felt a little bit nervous about the way she looked; she looked amazing. Which was exactly his problem. Once she walked into the form room she would have all eyes on her, guys especially, and not only because she was new. Why did he feel so protective? They were only friends; Flora had full freedom to date who she wanted. "Found them!" she exclaimed, climbing out of a large box and holding them up proudly. She walked back to the door way and started doing the inevitable one-legged dance anyone does when they try to put on shoes whilst standing up. "So you scrub up well, you don't look half bad." She smiled at him.

"I think I'll take that as a compliment," Helia raised an eyebrow.

"Do,"

"You look nice too," Helia stated, "I wouldn't have ever really imagined you wearing something like this though,"

"Oh, I'm glad you think so. As you know, I'm not the most confident person ever, and I have a hard time… Talking to people," she said as she turned to the other shoe, "So dressing up is really how I like to express myself," she grabbed her bag. "Okay, I'm ready."

~.~.~

Helia was right, as some as the two of them walked into homeroom the class went silent.

The teacher walked into the room holding a briefcase and a cup of coffee. "Oh," he said as he noticed Flora, "Class, this is Florence-,"

"Flora," Helia corrected.

"Flora, she's new so be nice. Hmm… I guess Layla can look after her. Agh, dammit…" the teacher ran back out of the room again once he noticed his watch.

"Hey, are you single?" someone loudly asked from the back of room.

"I… Urm… Excuse me?" Flora squeaked, looking at the group of guys at the back of the classroom.

"Don't worry man, the heavier she gets the easier she'll be to pick up," another guy said, before they all started laughing.

"I… Didn't… Even…" Flora was frozen stiff. She hadn't even been in the classroom for ten seconds and she had already been objectified. Helia walked towards the back of the room and slammed his fists on the desk in front of the guy who had started yelling at her.

"Jason, speak to her like that AGAIN, and I SWEAR you may not live another day!" He yelled in his face.

"Calm it, man," Jason laughed. "I just wanted to know if she was single or not, are you?" he said looking back to Flora. Flora stood there frozen for a moment before starting to look at her watch-less wrist, murmuring something about the time and then running out of the room.

"Flora, wait!" Helia went out after her.

The rest of the class looked around at each other, before a tall girl with dark skin and long dark brown curls stood up and glared angrily at Jason and his friends.

"You guys don't have to be such complete douches the whole time, you know," she told them.

"Layla, standard procedure, you gotta know where you are with a girl before you go in for the taking,"

"Ugh," she rolled her eyes and walked out of the room, to see Flora and Helia hugging in the hallway.

"Well, hi you guys," she laughed.

"Oh, hey Layla," Helia greeted, "Do you remember me ever talking about my very, very best childhood friend?"

"Hm, oh yeah, you mentioned her a few times actually," Layla said thoughtfully.

"Well this is her," Helia smiled, holding Flora's hand, "She moved back here yesterday, isn't that amazing?"

"Really? After how long?"

"Six years,"

"Wow, that's so cool! It's really nice to meet you, Flora, was it? I'm Layla, and was 'formally' appointed by Mr Kenford to look after you around school. I don't mind if you'd rather have Helia show you around though,"

"It'd be nice to meet some new people around here, it's been so long since I've lived here. Anyway, I've gotta drop by the Headmaster's office before class starts. Can you show me to dance afterwards?"

"Sure, I'll see you in a few minutes," Layla waved her off.

"Bye, bye Helia," Flora walked away, and as soon as she turned the corner Helia let out an enormous sigh, making Layla raise one eyebrow.

"What was that?" she asked slyly.

"What? Nothing?" Helia said quickly.

"Helia, what exactly was that 'look' you gave your best friend?" Layla folded her arms.

"What look?"

"That kind of wistful-I-want-to-love-you-all-over look,"

"Layla, I don't understand how you could even think that." Helia shook his head.

"You LIKE HER, DON'T YOU?" Layla pointed an accusing finger at him. Helia put a finger to her lips and gave her a pleading look.

"It's just a small crush, I'll get over it. We're best friends and I can't screw it up just over this."

"You really think it's just a crush?"

"Of course it is. I would say it's just because she's gorgeous, but I know her so well! There's nothing I don't like about her, she's sweet, kind, pretty, she loves art and animals and you have not lived until you've tasted her vanilla cupcakes."

"Helia, you're not convincing me with this whole 'crush' thing. You really don't think it could be something more?"

"What? No. Of course not."

"You honestly sound like you're in denial." She smirked.

"How come?"

"You're talking about her like she's some kind of goddess! And besides, you seem super protective of her."

"Why would you think I'm 'super protective' of her?"

"You just threatened to kill someone who made a sexist remark about her."

"Flora is really gentle, if anyone hurts her they will pay for it."

"And there you go again." Layla smirked. The bell rang and people started to walk out into the corridor. "I gotta go pick up your crush and take her to dance, see ya later,"

"Layla, _please _don't tell her,"

"I will give you one week to see if your feelings for her change at all, if they get stronger then you'll be torturing yourself. And neither of us want that. In the mean time, I'm thinking we should all get to know her a little better, maybe we could all take a nice trip to the beach, or to the pool, or to the waterpark, or anywhere that you'll have to endure Flora being bikini-clad." Said Layla, and then left before Helia had a chance to respond.

~.~.~

"Damn girl, you got moves! Where did you learn to dance like that?" Layla asked Flora as they walked out of the gym hall.

"Well, I've been taking ballet for as long as I can remember," Flora giggled, "I've only been doing it seriously since a I moved away from here though."

"That's cool, have you joined a class back over here yet?" Layla asked her.

"No, not yet, we have some other stuff to sort out first."

"Hey! You should join the company I go to! There's only five of us in the class, it would be great to have someone new,"

"That would be so nice, could you give me the number?"

"Sure, I send it to you later. So anyway, we're planning a trip to the beach on Saturday, wanna come?" Layla asked.

"I'm not sure… Will Helia be there?" Flora asked shyly.

"I'll _make sure _Helia's there,"

"Okay, that'll be great! Sorry, it's just that I'm a little nervous, and I don't really know any one very well other than him,"

"Flora, it's fine, I understand. Oh, and make sure you're wearing a bikini and not a one-piece."

"Um, okay, but why?"

"Because of… Heat-rays… Anyway, your art class is up that staircase and the second door on the right, cool, see you later Flora!"

~.~.~

"So, how was your first day?" Helia asked Flora as they walked home from school.

"It was okay, I mean, meeting your friends was great, but it was cancelled out by those complete jerks this morning."

"I'm really sorry about them…"

"It's not your fault, besides, you totally went all out for me. Standing up for me like that? It reminds me of when we were kids," Flora smiled as she grabbed his arm. Helia couldn't help but blush a little and turned away slightly. "Hey, speaking of the when we were kids, how about we go back to my house and look over some old photos? When we were packing I found about five huge albums full of them! I saved looking through them myself, because I thought that we could… Maybe… Do it together?" Flora asked excitedly, moving her hands up to his shoulders. Helia thought that he must have been shaking with nerves from her touch, but it was actually his phone.

_Helia u mron! we wer sppsed 2 mt mi hose 2day. wer r u?! musa xoxoxo_

"Oh, dammit, Flora, I'm really sorry, I was meant to go to Musa's house with Riven and Stella today… Maybe later?"

"Oh, okay, that's okay," Flora looked disappointedly down at the pavement.

"Listen, I can-,"

"Helia, it's fine, you have your own life, I have so much un-packing to do anyway,"

"I can ask Musa if you can come too,"

"I only saw her briefly during lunch today, I couldn't…"

"You only just came back, I don't want to spend any time without you right now,"

"'Right now'?" Flora raised her eyebrows.

"I am probably going to get sick of you _reeeally _quickly," Helia smirked, earning a smack around the back of the head from Flora. They both laughed.

"Ah, old times."

~.~.~.~

"Helia! Flora! Welcome to my LAIR! Don't worry; it's not that I'm some kind of ANIMAL or something… Or AM I?" Musa said loudly and laughed heartily as soon as she opened the door.

"Hey Musa," Helia waved slightly as he invited himself inside. "Are we in the living room or the basement today?"

"Basement. My mum's holding a yoga class in the living room."

"She what?" Helia smirked.

"I know, I didn't know that this was a thing either until I walked in on them." Musa laughed, "Hey Flora, you don't have to hang around the door, you can come in, you know,"

"Are you sure?" Flora asked nervously.

"Yes!" Musa laughed, patting her on the back and almost pushing her down the staircase. The basement was a large open space with not much more than two large sofas and a big TV, there were two bowls full of crisps on the floor, seeing as there was no table anywhere to be seen.

"Hey Muse, what happened to all the furniture?" Helia asked.

"Clear out," Musa shrugged.

"Hey it's Flora! And Helia!" Stella squealed, "Hey you guys!"

"Hey Stell," Helia waved and slumped down on another sofa, "Hey Riven,"

"Hey," Riven murmured. Probably still angry about the shopping trip with Stella. Flora sat nervously on the edge of the sofa next to Helia.

"So, what are we watching?" Helia asked as Musa shut the door to the basement.

"We were between horror and comedy, and we decided to go with comedy,"

"I can't _stand _horror," Stella said from behind a pillow.

"So we chose comedy," said Musa. She put the DVD in the machine and then went over to sit on Riven's lap. "Hey, Flora, can I have your number? Layla was talking about the beach trip this Saturday; I just think it'd be good to have it,"

"Oh sure," Flora said as she took out her phone.

"Hey Musa, can you text it to me? It'll text you back Flo, and then save mine," Stella said as she reached into her pocket. Since Flora had gotten back, she hadn't told Helia much about her old school, but the truth was that she hadn't had one good friend since she moved away. That's how she managed to have so much time to practice her ballet. She was getting through okay, but after one unfortunate event, she tried to spend as little time in the company of fellow students as possible.

~ Flash back ~

_It had been two months since Flora had moved away from Helia, and after enduring her first month full of loneliness; things were starting to look up. It was late, about eight o'clock at night, not that late but late enough for it to be odd to go grocery shopping. She walked out of the supermarket with not that much more than a box of breakfast cereal and a mango, when she looked over her shoulder to see Steve, one of the people who had been friendly around her recently; he was also the boyfriend of the only girl in school who had decided that Flora was worth spending any time with at all; Madison._

"_Hey Flora, what are you doing this weekend?" Steve asked her, breaking Flora's 'personal bubble' by standing inches away from her._

"_Nothing really," Flora shrugged, "Are you going to be doing anything with Maddie?" Flora smiled. "You guys make a super cute couple, I'm so jealous."_

"_Well, actually, Flora, you see… Things between Madison and I aren't really working out," Steve said as he inched closer towards her, making Flora back up closer towards a wall._

"_I'm really sorry to hear that, what happened?" Flora asked him sympathetically._

"_I saw her with… another guy…" Steve said slowly, moving his head closer to her neck and inhaling the fresh scent of her hair._

"_Steve… What are you doing?" Flora said, "You shouldn't really be…"_

"_Flora, you're so… sweet…"_

"_I have to get home, there's that biology test tomorrow and I have to do some more studyi-," Steve put a finger to her lips and then leaned in to steal Flora's first kiss. Flora closed her eyes tightly and tried to push him away, but she couldn't manage it. Throughout her whole childhood, she had no trouble trusting boys all because of Helia, but this kind of thing really scared her._

"_STEVE?!" Flora opened her eyes to see Madison standing in front of her looking as angry as all hell._

"_Maddie baby, it's not what it looks like, she does this kind of thing _all _the time, she has been coming on to me since she arrived here-,"_

"_Hey! That's not true!" Flora defended herself desperately before Madison slapped her, sending the poor girl to her knees._

"_You're a skank Flora, and I'm going to make sure everyone knows it. I can't believe I ever thought that you were worth it."_

"Hey Flo, I was just wondering if you wanted some crisps? Are you okay?"

Flora blinked quickly and she saw Helia holding a bowl of snacks in front of her.

"…What?" she responded dazedly.

"Have some crisps before Stella eats them all," Helia laughed. "You seemed totally out of it, what were you thinking about?"

"Um… I was wondering how…. Whales…." Flora said. Everyone stared at her, expecting her to finish her sentence. Instead, she took a crisp and averted her eyes back to the screen.

_~A/N~_

_So tell me what you thought, and the beach chapter will be coming up as soon as my little fingers can type it xox_


	4. Chapter 4

**Anything For You**

"I still can't get over how you can drive and everything now, it's so weird…" Flora sighed, "Anyway, this is so exciting! I can't wait to get into the water!" she grinned as Helia pulled into the car park outside the beach. "I haven't seen the ocean in ages…"

"This is okay, right? I mean… You're okay with coming, aren't you? Not because Layla forced you to, right?" Helia asked her, Flora giggled a little and shook her head.

"No, she just asked me and I said okay, and this week has been really fun. Your friends are being really nice to me," she smiled.

"It's because they really like you, why else would they be being nice to you?" Helia laughed.

Another car pulled up and beeped loudly at them, Layla came running out wearing a green bikini top, a purple sarong and sunglasses, waving manically at the two of them.

"HAPPY TIME BEACH TIME WOO! LET'S HIT DA WAAAAAVES!" She exclaimed before running off and on to the sand. Flora and Helia got out of the car and walked over to everyone else, where they where unloading all the supplies.

"That's fine, Layla! Leave US with the heavy baskets and bags!" Brandon yelled after her, before deciding that it was futile and picking them up himself.

"Okay everyone!" Stella announced, making everyone stand in front of her, "Us girls, minus Layla because she's already gone, will take the picnic stuff and beach balls down the shore," she said, taking a basket out of Brandon's hands.

"Well thank you honey, that's really nice of you," Brandon cooed.

"On the condition that you boys buy us all ice-cream. Now. GET TO IT! Chop chop, Brandy honey, get me a butter pecan." Stella said before leading the rest of the girls off with the stuff.

"Flora you can't go swimming in a dress, that's just silly," Layla said as the two of them laid out the two picnic blankets which all twelve of them had to fit on.

"This is only a cover up," Flora laughed, "Hey by the way, you didn't have to text me twelve times to remind me to make sure I wear a bikini. Actually, I don't think I've even owned a full one piece since school swimming in year four…" Flora said thoughtfully.

"Oh. Well there go minutes of effortful typing." Layla sighed, "Anyway, take it off!"

"Oh, okay," Flora pulled off her pink cover up to show of a simple coral bikini. "I'm not going in the ocean yet though, so it seems kinda pointless."

"Yeah, whatever man," Stella said as she flaunted her own yellow bandeau and bikini pants. "You know what they say: you'll get more… nice looks naked then you will with… clothes on."

"… Yeah, Stell, I'm pretty sure they _don't _say that." Musa shook her head slowly.

"Helia has really nice friends, I haven't met any new nice people in a long time." Flora smiled warmly. Layla rolled her eyes.

"Stop referring to us as 'Helia's friends'!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah, Layla's right, you've been hanging out with us all week, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with us." Bloom laughed, putting an arm around Flora.

"That's right bitch, you're going on my shopping list." Stella laughed heartily. Flora went over what the blonde had just said about three times in her head, and decided that it hadn't made any sense. She looked to the girl with vibrant pink hair for an explanation.

"She means that you're going to be entered into the ever lasting raffle that is Stella's shopping companion list."

"I mean, we love this girl," said Bloom, "But there's only so much my feet can take,"

"I know right? And _I _take _five_ different dances classes _and_ I'm on the track team." Said Layla, eyeing Stella with disbelief.

"When you're passionate about something, your ankles can take it." Stella huffed.

"Hey, we got ice cream over here!" Riven ran down the sand back and over to Musa.

"Chocolate! How did you know?" Musa said, stealing her cone away from him.

"You told me that if I didn't bring you chocolate then you'd kick me somewhere sensitive…"

"You're ruining the moment," Musa said through her teeth.

As Helia walked over the bank holding two ice cream cones, he looked towards Flora. She seemed completely blind to it, but she looked _amazing. _It was difficult to see any flaw on her body at all, he tried, but she looked so perfect to him. He was stunned. Of course Helia had been swimming with Flora a number of times in the past, but he felt angry with himself for looking at her in this whole new way. On reflex he averted his eyes to Layla, who was happily accepting a raspberry sorbet from Nabu. She noticed his glare and gave him a taunting wave. Helia rolled his eyes, and despite the blush on his face, continued to walk over to Flora.

"Hey, I got you strawberry," Helia said casually, handing her the cone of strawberry ice cream.

"Helia, you didn't have to do that," Flora gushed, "And you remembered my favourite flavour! You're so sweet- Layla, why are you looking at him like that?" Layla quickly shook her head.

"He has a spider on his back," she said before delivering a loud slap to Helia's back, "Got it,"

"Okay, Layla, ouch." Helia seethed.

"Anyway… Let's sit down!"

~.~.~

"Hey Layla, you couldn't help me with my sun lotion, could you?" Flora asked sheepishly, "I always forget about my back,"

"Oh, sorry Flora, I would, but my hands are completely full," Layla shrugged. Flora slowly observed her completely empty hands.

"But you're not holding anything…" As soon as Flora finished her sentence, Layla filled her fists with sand.

"I'm a little busy with this sand right now, but I'm sure Helia would be happy to give you a hand," She glared at Helia, who was having a conversation with Bloom and.

"Oh, okay, thanks." Flora shrugged. Musa nudged Layla and raised her eyebrows at her.

"Seriously Layla, what the hell?" Musa asked.

"I have terrible cramps!" Layla announced as she stood up, "Musa, come help me!"

"I'd rather not, thanks," Musa smirked. Layla rolled her eyes and poured the sand into Musa's hands.

"I need you to hold my sand while I get some water,"

"Oh don't worry Lay, we've got water here," Tecna held up a bottle.

"I don't like that water!" Layla exclaimed angrily before dragging Musa away.

"Hey I dropped your sand!" Musa said once they reached the other side of the bank, "Oh wait, I just remembered that I don't care." Layla rolled her eyes. "Why are you acting so mental? I mean, we all know you _are _insane, but we don't want Flora to catch on _that _quickly."

"Musa, shut up." Said Layla, "Here's the deal: Helia has a crush on Flora." Layla had decided not to tell all the girls about her devious plan, because Stella was the biggest loudmouth in the universe, and you can't tell Bloom anything without Stella finding out, and Tecna was the kind of girl who tweeted everything she heard.

"Seriously?" Musa seemed genuinely shocked, "How do you know?"

"He told me himself."

"Isn't that like… I dunno… A brother having a crush on his sister?" Musa scrunched up her nose, "I mean, they're such good friends."

"Please. If you want to call them siblings then they're way estranged siblings." Layla said, flapping her wrist in Musa's direction, who still didn't look totally convinced by Layla's odd answer. "My point is that they're not related. Anyway, my plan is to create sneaky situations where Helia will be subjected to the torture of having to see Flora be half naked, and if his feelings change by the end of next week… We'll just take it from there."

"So… you're just going to keep on taking us swimming all week?" Musa asked.

"No! We could all go… um…" Layla struggled to think of something else, "Underwear shopping…"

"Ha! Like I would give Riven the satisfaction!" Musa laughed.

~.~.~

"Hey, I'm not sure if you heard Layla's rambling just now, but I was wondering if you could help me out with my sun cream?" Flora asked Helia, shyly holding up the bottle.

"Oh yeah, sure." Helia shrugged, but inside, he was completely livid at Layla once again. Flora laid out on her front and rested her head on her hands. Helia awkwardly put a small dollop of the sun cream on his hands and then, again awkwardly, started to rub it into Flora's back.

Silence.

"I'm sorry if it's cold," Helia told her.

"Oh, no, it's fine," Flora replied quickly.

More silence.

Flora was getting a little bit desperate; she didn't want to suffer through awkward silences with her best friend. But why were there awkward silences?

"You have big hands…" Flora said slowly. '_Great. Nice going, Flora' _She thought."Do you play guitar?" '_And again, nice going, idiot'_

"Well… Sometimes I guess, I had a few lessons a couple of years ago but… yeah," Helia laughed awkwardly, concentrating on her smooth skin, "Okay I'm done," Flora immedietly sat up and gave him a quick smile before grabbing some watermelon from the basket.

"Mmm… Watermelon." Was something that, for some reason, Flora felt needed to be said. She kicked herself _again_, before stuffing her face with the fruit so that she wouldn't be able to say anything else. What was going on? Why was she acting this way around her _best friend_?

"Hey guys, I'm back," Layla plonked herself in-between the two of them. "Miss me?"

"Yes," Flora smiled politely.

"No," Helia smirked. Flora and Layla both smacked him on the arm.

"So anyway girls-,"

"Are you addressing me as well?" Helia asked.

"Yes,"

"Why?"

"The hair!" Layla said, as if it were obvious.

"Oh come on, I like his hair!" Flora smiled, "I remember it being a lot shorter, but I think it would look wrong if he had short hair now, he would look like…" Flora stopped to tap her chin. "What would he look like?" she crawled over to him and piled his hair on the top of his head, "Okay, now he looks like _Audrey Hepburn_."

"Thanks Flora, you always make me feel so manly," Helia laughed. "I'm keeping my hair long forever, when I'm an old man I'll look like my grandfather."

"Saladin, right?"

"Yup."

"As I was saying," Layla cleared her throat, "The plan is that we're having a volleyball show down, and then we'll be having a throwing a beach ball around showdown, and then a sunbathing showdown, and eventually a fire and roasting marshmallows showdown."

"Layla, not everything is a competition."

"LIFE IS A COMPETITION. I bet you come crawling back to me when you enter the real world to tell me that I was always right, and you should have been more competitive." She said before standing up to rifle through the beach supplies. Flora and Helia were alone again, and for some reason, some more tension was building.

"Hey, Flora?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Last one into the sea is a loser!"

~_A/N~_

_K, I am super aware that sucked, which is why I am giving myself another chance and extending it into another chapter which will be the second part of the beach adventure. (not an actual adventure though, I'm kinda tired and couldn't think of a better word ok?)  
Sorry for the wait, I kept adding to it every day but my super major writers block was being to total bitch to me._

_Also, if you don't know who Audrey Hepburn is by name, she's the lead in Breakfast at Tiffany's.  
And one more thing, I just saw the hobbit, and Aidan Turner who plays Kili the dwarf is delicious, im just sayin'._


	5. Chapter 5

Has anyone else been watching _Miranda _recently? SO FUNNY.

I can't thank you guys enough for the reviews, at this point, I've only written 4 chapters and I already have 78 reviews. 78. 78!? It's incredible, really. It's good to feel appreciated for once in my life (sob) no I jest, but seriously, I love you ALL from the bottom of my heart!  
ANYWAY, moving on with the mystical tale…

**Anything For You**

"I WIN!" Layla exclaimed, punching the air with a large grin on her face, while her volleyball teammates narrowed their eyes at her.

"Don't you mean 'we win'?" Riven asked.

"You didn't do squat, I'm taking the credit for this one, losers," she laughed.

"Hey, at least she's honest," Nabu shrugged from the other side of the net.

"Well, she's not really being honest there…" said Tecna.

"So, next tournament! That would be… THE SUNBATHING SHOWDOWN. 3… 2… 1… GO!" Layla sprinted to her purple towel and purposefully lay down, trying as hard as she could to relax.

"Okay, I think you girls can partake in that tournament, us _men _are going to have a little game of what I like to call _football._" Nabu said, nodding slowly at the rest of the guys.

"Do you mean American football or football-football?" Timmy asked.

"… We can't really play American football at the beach."

"Okay, okay boys, enjoy whatever kind of football you're playing, we've got some rays to catch," Stella said as she blew a kiss to Brandon. Flora gave Helia a slight wave before taking Musa's arm and walking over to the towels.

~.~.~

"You do this way too much, Stell," Tecna pointed out, although looking relaxed herself with her sunglasses falling down her nose and her arms behind her neck. "The weird thing is that you sunbathe so much, but you're not actually that tan,"

"How dare you!" Stella exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and swiping off her sunglasses, "I am way super tanned!"

"Well compare your skin to… I dunno, Flora." Tecna shrugged. Stella immedietly grabbed Flora's arm, pulling the poor girl straight off her towel. Flora wasn't expecting this; her sunglasses flew all the way over to the end of their row. Bloom absentmindedly threw them back without acknowledging what was happening.

"What? What happened?" Flora said, looking out over the beach frantically and panicking.

"How come you're so much more tan than me?!" Stella demanded, staring at Flora's arm in comparison to her own. Flora sighed heavily.

"It's genetics, my mum's originally from Puerto Rico!"

"It's not fair!" Stella whined, letting Flora go.

"I can't help my nationality Stella," Flora said apprehensively. Stella just lay down and grumbled whilst putting she sunglasses back on.

"Puerto Rico, huh?" Musa asked, "Have you ever been there before?"

"I was born there and moved here when I was about two, and then when I was about… seven or eight, Helia and I went on vacation there together. I don't really speak any Spanish though; my mum gave up on trying to teach me. I'm definitely not a language person," She smiled, "Where are you from?"

"Japan… I lived there up until I was ten and then I moved here."

"Wow, do you speak any Japanese?"

"Some, my dad still refuses to speak English to me when we're alone so I'm improving." Musa nodded, "So anyway, how about Helia, huh?" Musa asked, she wasn't purposefully changing the subject away from nationalities, but she was intrigued about the whole Flora/Helia situation.

"What about him?" Flora asked, confused at where the topic came from.

"He's kinda… You know… Right?" Musa said slowly.

"No, I don't know."

"He's got that… You get me… You know?"

"… No,"

"Do you think he looks good without a shirt on?" Musa spelt out for her. Flora stared at her for a moment in disbelief.

"I… I… Guess so?" Flora stuttered, "Thank you very much why to you please?"

"Just wondering," Musa shrugged.

"_What _were you wondering?" Flora asked.

"We're having a…" Musa began, but didn't quite know how to finish. Layla, who had been listening, sat up, and shuffled over to Musa.

"… a contest…" Layla finished for her. "It's to decide…"

"… Who…"

"… Should be…"

"… Helia's new girlfriend!" Musa finished triumphantly, grinning back at Layla for the joint effort on covering that one up.

"Um okay, but what are you asking me for? I don't really want to know if Helia's looking for a new girlfriend or whatever the set up is here," Flora said, lying back down. Layla and Musa looked at each other and then back at Flora.

"Interesting…" Flora sensed that they were going to ask something else so she sat up abruptly.

"Okay girls, to shut you up-," Flora snapped. It wasn't really in her nature to talk so harshly, but this conversation was really getting on her nerves, and even she didn't know why, "Helia and I are _very _close, and I just don't want to think about some other girl coming and taking away his time for other things…"

"Other things being…?"

"Things like me, okay?" she sighed, "My biggest fear when coming back here was that Helia would be spending all his time with some other girl, and wouldn't want or have time to… bring back our friendship, I guess. Let's just enjoy ourselves today, okay? I don't really want to talk about Helia and relationships right now… I'm sorry that I… snapped."

"We _totally _touched a nerve here," Layla whispered in Musa's ear.

"Hey!" Brandon called, running back to the girls with the rest of the guys following him.

"Hey honey-bear!" Stella called, "Who won the 'big match'?"

"Riven's team beat Nabu's by one goal," said Sky, taking a seat next to Bloom who still hadn't moved.

"TRY HARDER NABU!" Layla got up and slapped him around the head.

"So who one the sunbathing contest?" Timmy asked.

"I think Bloom won this one," Tecna laughed, "She hasn't said a word in ages,"

"What? DAMMIT!" Layla kicked the sand beneath her feet.

"… What?" Bloom responded dazedly.

"Hey, are you ready to get back into the water?" Helia crouched next to Flora who was still lying on her towel.

"Sure…" She grinned, before pushing him over and sprinting into the water as fast as she could, "I'M WINNING THIS TIME LOSER!"

~.~.~

The sun was only just beginning to set, and everyone was still in the sea. Layla and Musa were still intrigued about their conversation with Flora. The two of them were sitting on the sand just in front of the water.

"So I had a male best friend once, back in Japan." Musa shared.

"Really? What was his name?" asked Layla.

"Jared. He was this Japanese-American guy who went to my international school. We only just started speaking again, because of the magic of Facebook. He says he's dating this girl who he really likes, and I _want _to know all about it. He's my bro: I'm happy for him." Musa frowned, "But I just don't get Flora's deal about even thinking about Helia with another girl."

Meanwhile, Flora was trying her best to swim in the waves, but it wasn't really her biggest strength. She enjoyed it, but at the same time was frustrated by how bad she was at it. She paddled a little further in to where everyone else was throwing around a beach ball.

"OH MY GOSH A SHARK!" Flora tripped over on the sea floor and clung tightly to Helia's arm, "- No wait sorry, it was just a rock," she giggled sheepishly before jumping again, "OH MY G- no, no, another rock." Helia sniggered at her, so she rightfully smacked him around the head.

"Sorry, sorry," he laughed defensively.

"What are these rocks even DOING down here? It's not like water has a high demand for rocks." Flora grumbled, and then went over what she had just said in her head. "I'm not stupid," she reassured everyone quickly.

"Hey it's gonna get dark soon, I'm going to go get the wood from the car. Bloom, you have the firelighters, right?" Sky asked.

"Fire is my element man!" Bloom laughed.

"… So is that a yes?"

"Yes."

"And the matches too, right?" he asked again.

"I think… DAMN!" Bloom cursed before splashing her way out of the water. "Stella, we're going to the corner shop!"

"Woo! Shopping!" Stella said, dropping the beach ball and following Bloom. Bloom rolled her eyes and quickly dried herself off before making the small trip to the high street.

Flora walked out of the water with much difficulty and fell on to the sand next to Layla and Musa.

"Water… Is not… My friend." She panted. Musa and Layla laughed at her, Flora lifted herself up composed herself. "Hey Layla, Helia told me that you were practically a fish when it came to the ocean, why aren't you in there?"

"I've worn myself out with all the competitions, I just want to sit here and enjoy the sunset in the company of my best friends with no more competitiveness," she sighed, "Oh and by the way, I just won the competition for the most touching sentence of the day."

~.~.~

Once Bloom and Stella had gotten back with the matches, and the sun was fully down, Sky lit up the fire and broke out the marshmallows, giving everyone a stick. Flora was in between Layla and Helia and had her head rested on Helia's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" He asked gently. She nodded and rubbed her eyes.

"I had a lot of fun today, I guess I'm kinda drained," she smiled wearily, "But I'm fine for a _few _more marshmallows," snaking her hand into the packet and putting five more on her stick at the same time. "I'm not addicted," she reassured everyone before roasting them on the fire.

Helia needed to work out if he felt that anything was ever going to happen between the two of them. If he did make a move then he would be putting _a lot _on the line. Special occasions, family get-togethers and even school now involved Flora, and they would have to stay friends for the sake of their families. Would he be able to push aside his feelings? Or would they continue to grow? And most importantly, was Flora feeling the same thing?

_~A/N~_

_Writers block, I hate you. You're the worst. I wasn't totes keen on the way I portrayed Flora in this chap, or the chap in general, but please please bear with me!_

Also, I said Flora was from Puerto Rico because her appearance is based off J-Lo, and that is where J-Lo's parents are from.

One more thing, an anonymous reviewer kept asking me if I was going to be updating the Princess and the Pauper, and yes of course, it's got a good few chapters to go yet XD


	6. Chapter 6

**Anything For You  
**

It was Sunday, and Flora had no plans. Not with Helia, not with anyone. She had surprised herself by how much she had actually gone out with actual people in the past week, so her room was still stacked high with brown cardboard boxes.

"I guess I'd better get started…" she sighed heavily and cut open one of the biggest boxes. She grabbed a pile of her clothes from it and shoved them into her wardrobe, then shut the door before they came falling out.

"Close enough." She nodded smugly to herself.

The doorbell rang and Flora heard her mum open it, and then heard a voice saying 'is Flora home?' and then her mother saying, 'sure Helia, she's in her room, go on up,'

She quickly made sure the box containing her underwear was shut and fixed her hair in her mirror. Helia opened the door gave her a friend-greeting-hug.

"Hey Helia," Flora said casually, "What brings you here?"

"Bored." Helia shrugged.

"I thought you were going to the gym with Riven and Brandon,"

"That was this morning," Helia said whilst flumping down on Flora's soft mattress. "What are you up to right now?"

"Ugh, I need to sort out all these boxes," she groaned, opening up another one. Helia sat up and smiled at her.

"Want some help?"

~.~.~

"How much stuff do you HAVE?" Helia moaned, using a knife to open up yet another box.

"Hmm… A fair amount," she shrugged while sorting out her wardrobe, which she had failed to do earlier.

"I mean, most of this stuff is clothes… Hey, what are these?" Helia pulled out five large navy blue books from the bottom of the box. Flora crawled of to him to see what he was looking at.

"Oh, those are the photo albums I was telling you about last week." Said Flora, blushing a little. A smile crept on to Helia's face.

"Shall we?" he asked her. Flora nodded her head eagerly.

They both sat up on Flora's bed with pillows propped up behind the two of them and Helia opened the first album.

"So this was back in Puerto Rico, right?" Helia asked. They were both looking at a photo Julianna lying in a hospital holding a tiny little baby girl in her arms.

"That's right,"

"Aww, you were such a cute little baby!" Helia cooed, pinching Flora's cheek. She brushed him off and turned the page.

"That must have been just before we moved," Flora said, looking at herself as a little one year old. She was sitting out in a green garden wearing light denim dungarees and squinting at the sun. She turned the page again; the double page spread contained a few more pictures of young Flora. There was picture of her on the day they moved to the house where they were now, a picture of her on her third birthday, and one on her fourth birthday and a picture of her on her first day of school, looking nervous as ever in a forest green pinafore and her fluffy brunette locks in pigtails.

"Weren't you adorable!" Helia cooed once again. "What on earth happened?" Flora smacked him on the arm and briskly turned the page again.

"Hey look! It's the day we met!" Flora gasped. They both looked at their former selves. Young Flora had her arms a boy with scruffy black hair. They both had big grins on their faces. "Do you remember that day at all?" she asked him. He thought back and tapped his chin.

"Well, I remember you walking into my room for the first time, I remember that we didn't have much to say to each other, but I also remember that watching you consume lemonade was the most entertaining thing in the world. And it still is." He laughed at her. "Do you remember anything?"

"I remember beating yo' ass in 'don't step on the lava'," she said smugly, "But I also remember being terrified at the prospect of being alone with a boy. You know what the boys at school were like."

"Mini douchebags?"

"Exactly."

"Aww…" Helia said as he put an arm around her, "What would you have done without me?"

"I don't know," Flora said quietly. They turned the page to see more and more photos of the two of them. One of the first times they went swimming together. Helia was wearing plain orange trunks and Flora was wearing a frilly pink bathing suit. They were holding hands and jumping into the pool together.

"That was the first time I had ever jumped into a pool. I remember being terrified, but you told me it would be okay as long as I held your hand," Flora smiled. "I always remembered that, I don't think you knew how much it meant to me…"

"No…" Helia agreed, "But I always remembered that you listened to me, so I never took your trust for granted,"

"And that was the right choice, else we wouldn't be so close today," Flora laughed.

They looked through a countless amount of pictures; there were holiday snaps from Puerto Rico, Christmas photos, birthday party pictures, family days out, sleepovers and anything else you could think of. The reoccurring theme through them all was the fact that they were always together. Always next to each other at restaurants, holding hands when walking and sitting on the sofa next to each other when watching a film.

"There are a lot of these…" Helia said in awe. They turned over then tenth page on the third album and both looked confused at a picture of the two of them, smiling while holding spades and black metal box.

"Do you remember that?" Flora asked him. He shook his head slowly. Flora took the photo out of the album and turned it over, to see if the date was written on the back of it. "Time Capsule, August 2003?" she read aloud.

"No way!" Helia exclaimed, taking the photo back from Flora. "This is when we buried that stuff in one of our gardens, I don't even remember what we buried,"

"Seriously?" Flora tried to think back as hard as she could, "I can't remember anything about that day… Let's ask my mum."

They took the photo out of her room and walked into the kitchen. Julianna was eating a piece of banana bread and sipping a cup of tea while flipping through a recipe book. She looked up and smiled at the two of them.

"Hey kids," she said, "What's up?"

"Do you remember this, mum?" Flora asked, handing her mother the photo. Julianna laughed heartily and nodded her head.

"Of course I do! That was so cute, you both decided that you wanted to bury your- …you know what? Why don't you dig them up and see for yourselves." She smiled.

"Dig them up?" Flora repeated. Julianna nodded as she went through her handbag and picked out her wallet.

"This thing has been in here for _years_. If anything it means that I need a new wallet." She giggled, handing Flora a small and scruffy piece of paper. Intrigued, unfolded it and tried to make out what it was.

"A map?" Flora asked. Her mother nodded.

"You two drew it up so you wouldn't forget where you buried it, and it must still be in our garden. I mean, unless the people who were living here in the mean time were total creeps-,"

"Which they were." Helia interjected.

"Thanks Helia, anyway, they might still be there. Your father unpacked all the tools yesterday, there should be a spade in the shed."

"Let's do this thing!" Flora said enthusiastically and dragged Helia outside.

~.~.~

"Have you deciphered it yet?" Flora asked Helia. They were both standing out in the garden looking around helplessly. Helia was squinting at the map and Flora was repeatedly hitting the back of her legs with a spade, making a distinctive 'ow' every time she hit them too hard.

"… No." Helia concluded, "I think we were illiterate as kids." Flora rolled her eyes and thrusted the spade into his hands.

"Give me that," she took the map from him. "Okay, so I think this cloud-like shape is a shrub… and that umbrella could be an… umbrella… oh no, it's a tree. Oh! The tree!" Flora pointed to the large oak tree in the corner of the garden. It must have been growing in that place for at least forty years, way before Flora and her family even moved there. "That means that we're holding it upside down," she flipped the map the right way round and began to trace it with her fingers. "Hmm… As children, we decided that the best place to bury this stuff was slap bang in the middle of the garden."

"How did I not get that? The 'x' is even in the centre of the page, I really don't think we've gotten any more intelligent since then." Helia laughed. They walked into the centre of the garden and estimated where the ground was the softest, and then started to dig. Not two shovels later, Helia hit something hard.

"Ooooh!" Flora exclaimed, hearing the sound. "Thank goodness we were lazy diggers as kids!" They pulled the chest out of the ground and looked at it triumphantly.

"This is awesome," Said Helia.

"Let's open it!" Flora said excitedly, kneeling down and looking for the opening mechanism. There were two metal and rusty clips at the top of the box, meaning that it opened in the way in which a toolbox would open. Inside the box there was a black bin bag, possibly to stop anything from getting totally damp and ruined.

"Are you ready for this?" Helia asked her, with his hands on the bag.

"So ready," Flora said with her hands on it too.

"Three…"

"Two…"

"One…"

"GO!"

The savagely opened up the bag and found two books, a necklace and bunch of papers that had been clipped together.

"Whoa! These are our old diaries!" Helia said looking at the two books. One was plain and black, the other was green, covered in pink roses and locked with a padlock in the shape of a butterfly.

"Hm, I wonder who's is who's?" Flora said with an element of fake wonder in her voice. Helia rolled his eyes and passed her the floral one.

"Wow… I don't remember writing this much…" Helia said as he flipped through the book, "I've written about everything."

"I wonder what I did with the key…" Flora frowned, "All there is this necklace with a pendant in the shape of a butterfly- oh okay. I get it. I'm slow." Flora slapped herself in the face and used the pendant to unlock her diary. She read through the delicate pages and her face turned bright red. "And there goes any pride I ever had." She said, snapping the book shut.

"What does it say?" Helia asked.

"You shall NEVER know the contents of this book." She pointed at him. Helia shrugged and turned his attention to the bunch of papers. He picked them up and instantly burst out laughing.

"You've got to remember this!" He held them in front of her face. She squinted at the writing.

"'Flora and Helia's Christmas extravaganzaaaaaaa 2002'?" she read aloud, and then it clicked in her mind. "Was this the play we wrote for our parents?"

"Yep," Helia sniggered, "Just listen to this: 'Flora: But we're not done yet… Helia the magnificent has a few more tricks up his sleeve! Helia: (appears magically wearing a hat) thank you, and now I'm going to turn my assistant into a tree. (Flora turns into a tree) tadaa!" Helia laughed at their play writing, Flora took the script from him and giggled at everything she read.

"How about this?: 'Flora: I can scream quite loudly. Helia: But she's not as loud as Julianna, who can shake the house when she is surprised at something. We think she's crazy, but it's okay because her carrot cake is delicious.'"

~.~.~

Once Helia had left and she had eaten dinner, Flora sat on her bed and flipped through the pages of her old diary.

'_I don't think that I'll ever meet another boy as nice as Helia.' 'What will happen to me when he gets married?' 'What if he forgets me?' 'I want a pet bunny,' 'I don't want to spend the rest of my life with anyone other than Helia.' _Were what the pages of the diary mainly consisted of. Flora snapped the book shut and looked up at her ceiling. She was sick of denying it; she was in love with her best friend.

What was she going to do?

_~A/N~_

_This chapter sent me on a little trip down memory lane… (sigh)  
My original inspiration for the story was from something that happened to me, (except it wasn't a romantic thing :P) I had a best friend who lived around the corner from me, but she moved to India, then Singapore, then Australia, then back to India and then spent a few months in America before moving back into her old house, which, I kid you not, happened just before I moved house, which was a few months ago. Our reunion was way a shock, because I didn't know she was coming home, she left before we knew that email existed. I was just walking into town when I saw a girl flattening boxes outside her old house. I had to look closely, but then I was all like "NO. WAY." And she was all like. "ARE YOU WHO I THINK YOU ARE?" and then I was all like "HUG ME SISTA!" it was all very emotional :')  
And with another one of my friends, we wrote a play for the rest of our family, and it went a little something like this (I'm J and my friend is S) S: wake up, wake up, you're dreaming! J: No, I'm fishing. S: You're inside a volcano. J: I guess that explains why all the fish are dead.  
We were about six/seven at the time. Our props consisted of sofa cushions, a bell, a cat toy fish and a notepad.  
Sorry; you probably didn't want or need to know that, but you can't stop me when I start looking back! XD anyway, review!_


	7. Chapter 7

**Anything For You**

It was Wednesday, half way through Flora's second week of school. Once school had ended, Layla took her to her first ballet lesson since she had moved.

"So, are you up for some coffee?" Layla swung her green gym bag over her shoulder and looked at Flora, who was _still _changing back into her normal clothes after ballet. Her particular ensemble today was a high-wasted pink mini skirt and a plain, white long sleeved cropped tee. She picked up her pink duffle bag and nodded.

"Sure, that sounds great. Where should we go?"

"How about_ Jack's_?" Layla suggested.

"_Jack's_? Isn't that the milkshake counter in the middle of the shopping centre?"

"Okay, if you have to know one thing about me, it's that whenever I say coffee, I mean milkshakes."

"Okay, I'm not arguin'," Flora laughed.

The ballet studio was in a building that was situated possibly ten metres away from one of the many entrances to the mall. It was convenient to say the least. The square between the two buildings was spacious, and sometimes held farmers markets, but at other times it was where teens just went to smoke. As they left the studio, something clicked into Layla's mind.

"Hey Flora, I'm really sorry about the late notice but we're throwing a surprise birthday party for her next week, want to join the fun?" she asked.

"I'd love to! Do you think Stella would want me there though?"

"Duh! I'll text you the details later."

"Hey, hey!" a male voice yelled from the bike racks. "It's Layla and Florence!"

"Jason, just f**k off, okay?" Layla folded her arms, "And you know its Flora."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, I knew that," he staggered towards the two of them. The girls scrunched up their noses at the putrid stench of cigarette smoke and possibly alcohol. "So Florence-a. Have you thought anymore about the…" He didn't finish his sentence, but just made some vague gestures.

"If you mean about what you said to me the first time we met, then no. I've been trying to push it out of my mind."

"Oh so what, you're 'too good' for me?" he said firmly, staggering back a couple of steps.

"DAMN RIGHT SHE IS!" Layla exclaimed, pulling his arm and twisted it around his back.

"Ow ow ow ow , let go of me Layla!" he yelped. She pushed him to the ground and hastily grabbed Flora's arm.

"Let's get out of here."

They quickly made their way to the doors and sighed heavily as they walked into the bottom floor of the mall.

"Jeez, I'm really sorry about that Flo. Next time, we'll go out the back way and take the long way around. _Anything _to avoid that creep." Layla said apologetically and shuddered at the end.

"It's fine Layla. Thanks for standing up for me."

"No prob, Helia can't be around for you all the time." She smiled.

"I just wish I didn't have to rely on anyone to stand up for myself, why can I just yell back at someone? What's wrong with me?" Flora asked wearily.

"Well after extensive and expensive lab tests and votes I can declare that you are just too sweet." Layla cooed, poking Flora's nose. Flora brushed her off.

"But what if I don't want to be sweet? We can't I be daring, or fun for once in my life?"

"Oh come on Flora, you are fun! You were great to have around at the beach, and Helia has said nothing bad about his childhood, and he always referred to you as the best friend he could have ever asked for."

"He said that about me? When?"

"Well, whenever we spoke about our childhoods, Helia would always look a bit distant. We'd be all like 'what's on yo' mind, son?' and he'd be all like 'im just tinking man,' and we'd be all like, ''bout whut?' and he'd be all like 'my best mate 5eva, I dunno if I will eva c her again, but im glad we met cuz ma kidhud cud not hav been any betta.'," Layla explained. Flora tried to follow, but failed. "Those weren't his exact words,"

"… I gathered."

The two of them arrived at the milkshake counter and looked up and down the massive number of flavours.

"I'm gonna stick with my favourite triple c: the chocolate caramel crunch." Layla licked her lips as she pulled out her purse. Flora was still struggling with the list; she was always incredibly indecisive at the least important of times.

"Hmm… I'm going to try the… mint and vanilla swirl." Flora told the man behind the counter, pulling out her wallet.

"Thanks ladies, take a seat and we'll be with you in a minute,"

Layla sat down in the most extravagant manor possible, stretching out her arms and legs, looking a little bit like a starfish that had been propped up against a chair, and then eventually melted into it. Flora just sat down politely.

"Let me tell you, there is _nothing _like a milkshake after a long ballet class," Layla sighed happily, "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yeah it was great," Flora smiled, "Hard work though, I didn't realise that all the other girls on pointe would be so advanced…"

"Are you kidding? You were amazing! Stop second guessing yourself, geez…" Layla sighed, "So did you like the other girls?"

"Amaryl was acting really cold towards me, I mean, she didn't even say hello… Come to think of it, she didn't even look me in the face."

"Oh, yeah, that…" Layla laughed anxiously, "It's because you were hanging around with me… This goes back to Bloom, and now that girl won't associate with anyone in our group. There was this school camping trip… At night, she started yelling from inside the wood… we thought she was being attacked so we went to find her… It turned out to be a tree branch… And when we called for her she turned around, walked right into it and passed out. To this day she still thinks Bloom hit her around the head with a camping stove."

"… Right…" Flora said slowly, "But Mirta was lovely, I'd love to see more of her!"

"Yeah, that girl is so sweet, and her style says otherwise,"

"I like her style, I would probably be more into the emo/goth scene if I didn't love my hair so much." Flora laughed, "I love my hair by the way, I never want it to change."

"Girl, you have to love something about yourself. For me it's the general looks, personality, style, and sense of humour, knowledge… Well, to sum myself in seven words it would have to be 'the best person who has ever lived,' the two girls burst out laughing. "What about Lucy? Did you like her?"

"Lucy was nice, but she was really quiet, is she close with Mirta?"

"They've been best friends for a long time, and Lucy just left hanging around with the 'wrong' kind of people,"

"I see." Flora nodded, "I liked Roxy, she was really kind and bubbly,"

"Oh yeah, Rox, she's really close with Bloom"

"Does everyone in the world ever know Bloom?" Flora giggled slightly.

"Well pretty much. She's that person who does well in everything and still manages to have the time for everyone. There's a reason she's popular. She's even running for head girl next year."

"Wow, I could never do that… I hope she gets it!" Flora smiled, "But anyway, it's a nice class, and it would be even better if Amaryl didn't always have that 'judging you' face on. I mess up a lot and get embarrassed easily."

"But you didn't mess up at all,"

"My Jetés were really messed up in my pointe shoes. I spent a while trying to strengthen my ankles because they're a little weak, so I didn't go up on pointe until about... Two years ago? I practiced hard but I still have a lot of work to do. I don't think I could do it very confidently at a recital yet."

"Stop undermining yourself and just own it! You're a great dancer, so flaunt what yo mamma gave you. Enough said. Oh hey, our shakes!" Layla's face lit up when the waiter walked over with one green milkshake and one brown.

"One triple c…" He said as he placed the brown one in front of Layla, "And one mint vanilla swirl. Enjoy ladies,"

"Thanks dude, you rock my socks," Layla said, waving a spoon after him. He slowly nodded and then turned around quickly. She stuck her straw in, took a big slurp and then gave a loud groan of pleasure, "DAMN this is tasty. How's yours?"

"Delicious, thank you," Flora said happily, taking a delicate sip of her own.

"So. I've been wondering… Is it weird see Helia again after all this time?" Layla asked. Flora laughed and nodded slightly.

"I didn't actually realise it was him when I first got out of the car, I never imagined him with long hair… And he's so… Big…"

"'Big'?" Layla repeated, raising an eyebrow. Flora quickly shook her head.

"Not big as in 'big', but… He's _crazy _tall, and quite… muscly?" Flora said hesitantly.

"I get what you're saying dear," Layla laughed. "But how did you loose connection like that? I mean, from what I hear you're families were _so _close."

"It was before I had gotten an email address and way before either of us knew what Facebook was. We called every now and again, but because of the cost of it, it kind of died down…"

"Didn't you get a Facebook account later though?"

"I never got a Facebook account because I… Never really had anyone… That I felt I could… Add as a friend…" Flora said slowly.

"What do you mean?"

"I wasn't the most popular person at my old school…" Flora sighed.

"Why the hell not? You're gorgeous, super sweet and you really aren't much of a gossip." Layla said, slightly dumbfounded.

"… Can I talk to you about something? I've been wanting to get it off my chest for… well, a few years now. I've never told my parents, and it's not the kind of thing I'd talk to Helia about. It's something that I'd need to tell a girl about… It's not anything particularly girl-like but-,"

"Flora, I get it, just spill already." Said Layla. Flora took a deep sigh before looking down at her hands that were resting in her lap.

"I've been called a whore, slut, slag, bitch, and everything else with that particular meaning." Flora said bluntly, fidgeting with her fingers. She didn't look up to see Layla's face, but she was wearing a look of disbelief.

"… You?" said Layla with a blank tone, "Why?"

"It wasn't long after I moved away, in fact, I was only eleven at the time…"

"Eleven? ELEVEN? What the hell kind of school did you go to?" Layla said with an enormous sound of shock in her voice.

"I was in Year 7, and I had already gained that stupid reputation with the rest of the school." She put her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands, "And I didn't even do anything!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, what actually happened?"

"I was walking home from the supermarket, and my only friend's boyfriend came up to me… Said some stuff and then kissed me. I tried to push him off me as hard as I could… But his girlfriend saw, hit me to the ground, told everyone else at school about it… And that was it for me. No one wanted to have anything to do with me."

"And what happened to the slime ball who kissed you?"

"He never told anyone it was him; he kept telling everyone that I had been coming on to him for ages. Please. I don't even know _how _to flirt with people."

"That ASSHOLE. Was that your first kiss?"

"Well… First and last. He doesn't even _know _how much the first kiss means to a girl, especially to me. It's when two souls connect, and I feel like I won't be able to put my trust in any guy ever again." She said sadly.

"Apart from Helia," said Layla.

"I mean romantically," Flora laughed nervously. Layla just gave her an 'I already knew that' look and then decided to move on.

"Wow… No wonder you're so shy. And you haven't told Helia about this?"

"Of course not!"

"Why not? He's your best friend."

"Well… I just don't really want him to know that without him I couldn't even get one long term friend, and I couldn't stand up for myself without him. I mean, here he is, building up his life and excelling academically like any dream-child would be, but then there was me. Unable to function properly without him. I could have owned it, I could have given into the lie and strutted about like I was 'getting it on' with everyone. Or I could have spoken to my parents about it, told the school, or I could have slapped that bastard around his stupid face. But no. I just went quietly around school, saying nothing all day. Took off all the sick days I could get away with and spent the rest of my free time practicing ballet."

"That can't have been healthy." Layla bit her lip.

"I really felt like some kind of freak of nature."

"But you're not." Layla took Flora's hand in hers to stop her from constantly fidgeting, "If anyone lays a _finger _on you, they'll be sorry. It's all very well having Helia, but you _need_ girlfriends. And me and the girls will all happily step up to the post for you."

"That really means a lot to me." She smiled back.

"Pwoar, I'm not spoiling a 'moment', am I?" Tecna appeared, standing over the table, holding an array of large bags.

"Hey, Tec!" Layla greeted happily, "Take a seat,"

"Don't mind if I do," she pulled over a chair from the table next to them and settled down. "Did you just get back from ballet?"

"Yep, what are you doing in town so late?"

"Ugh, errands." She gestured to her shopping bags, "My mum wanted me to pick up: double sided sticky tape, scissors, wrapping paper, curtains, lemons, the clip that makes the dishwasher door shut and a bathroom mop." Tecna huffed, gesturing to all her bags.

"Wow, why couldn't she do it?" Layla raised an eyebrow.

"She 'forgot'."

"That's not an excuse."

"That's what I told her, but she told me not to argue."

"Mums. What are they like?" Layla chuckled.

"IRRITATING. She thinks she can control my life but turning the Internet off. And she's right, she can! I LIVE on the Internet." Tecna groaned.

"We don't have our Internet even working right now, and we won't have it for another three weeks," Flora said calmly.

"How do you _live?_" Tecna said in disbelief. She grabbed her purse and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Layla asked her.

"To get ALCOHOL." She said back.

"They don't sell alcohol here!"

"Then I'll just get a Bailey's milkshake. It's close enough."

~.~.~

"Well, I guess this is where we part our ways," Layla said dramatically to Flora and Tecna as the approached Flora's house. The two girls laughed.

"I had fun hanging out with you girls, and I haven't actually spoken to you very much Tecna, we should talk more," Flora smiled warmly. Tecna nodded.

"Totally. Next time I am with both you and a computer, I am getting you email, Facebook, Twitter… I just don't understand how you can function in this day and age without it." She laughed.

"And _I _am going to take _you _for a nice long walk in the company of nature, without all your gadgets, do we have a deal?"

"You bet." Tecna said, briskly shaking Flora's hand. Helia appeared underneath a streetlight and was continuing to walk towards them, without actually realising they were there due to his headphones.

"Well look what the cat dragged in." Flora laughed.

"HOLY SH-… I mean, hey, guys, what's up?" Helia jumped, noticing them just before bumping into them. His headphones fell out of his ears and her rolled them back up with his iPod before laughing at himself for what had just happened.

"What were you doing out so late?" Tecna asked him.

"I was with Brandon, he was trying to pick out a birthday present for Stella, but no luck so far. You know how picky that girl is." Helia shrugged. "What about you guys?"

"Flora and I just got back from dance, and the three of us had milkshakes afterwards and did a little window shopping." Layla explained, "Speaking of Stella's _surprise _birthday party, what are you guys on? I am, of course, sorting out the music and dancing with Musa."

"I'm sorting out the memory photo reel," Tecna laughed, "It's so typical, it's like you guys don't even know how take a photo on a camera. Well, I'll give you a hint, it's the BIG BUTTON in the most CONVINIENT place for your finger to press while holding the camera."

"Oh come on Tec, you would have complained if we'd put you on decorating duty."

"True, true,"

"-Which is what I am stuck with. How am I supposed to decorate the whole club on my own?" Helia moaned.

"Hey Helia, SUCK IT UP."

"I don't mind helping…" Flora squeaked, "I mean, I know I'm not really invited but I don't mind giving you guys a hand. Most likely I'll be free that day anyway."

"Since when were you not invited?" Layla asked. "I invited you a couple of hours ago."

"Oh yeah…"

"Well, we have been planning this since before she moved back here," Tecna pointed out, "But you're one of us now. If we're making talking about plans in front of you, you ask- no, you don't ask, you DEMAND to tag along."

"But what if Stella doesn't want me there?" Flora asked quietly. Layla and Tecna simultaneously rolled their eyes.

"Flora we've already been over this- I give up, come on Tec, Helia, you sort this one out. See you tomorrow!" Layla said as she took Layla's arm and continued down the road.

"So…"

"So…"

"It would be great if you could help out Flora, and I was actually going to invite you myself as soon as I got back from the mall with Brandon, but it hasn't really been the biggest thing on my mind recently…" Helia smiled.

"I'd be happy to help… But what's going on with you're mind?"

"I'm not sure, maybe it's the fact that my BF is back in my life!" Helia exclaimed, putting an arm firmly around her.

"AWW Helia," Flora giggled. "You're the best, you know that right?"

"I know all too well," Helia smiled arrogantly, before laughing, "You're the best too, Flo. We make a great team." Helia said, and then instantly wanted to take it back. "No, I meant in a non… You know…" Helia spluttered out anxiously. Even in the dim light of a streetlamp her skin looked radiant, and her eyes were sparkling slightly. Flora bit her lip; Helia had stopped talking and the two of them were just staring at each other. Flora had never really noticed how striking his aqua eyes were; they were so bright and she felt as though they were piercing her mind.

Would it be so wrong if anything ever happened between them?

No.

Yes.

Yes, she couldn't screw up the relationship between their to families. They _had _just stay friends.

"Oh, sorry. It's fine. See you tomorrow," Flora said quickly. They parted their ways and went to their separate houses. They both tried to use their keys, but they weren't working. Flora took a step back. "WHOA THERE. This isn't my house!" she laughed hysterically, and then Helia noticed the same thing.

"We're the biggest idiots on the planet." Helia said, slapping himself in the face.

* * *

_Hey gurlfriends, or guyfriends, or transgendered friends...  
__This was kind of a suckish space filler chapter, sorry it took so long. As you may have noticed, it's about 2000 words longer than my regular chaps... Anyhoo, review?_


	8. Chapter 8

**Anything For You**

Helia slowly opened his blue eyes and stretched from his fingers to his toes. Today was the day of Stella's party, and everyone was going to meet at the club to prepare. He looked to the clock: 10:15 am.

"Already?" he yawned sadly, he had exactly forty-five minutes until he had to meet Flora outside. "Okay…" he sighed, standing up and stretching some more. He glanced out his window to see a very familiar girl wearing nothing but a pink bra and panties. In his tired state, he stood there for a couple of seconds, just staring at this girl. "HOLY SH-." He fell over completely once he realised that it was Flora. Luckily, she hadn't noticed him, but he still felt bad. "… Why the hell did I keep looking?"

~.~.~

"Flora? What are still doing here?" Julianna looked up from her novel to see her daughter walking into the kitchen, carrying a large handbag and wearing a white blouse that tied up at the front and some denim shorts. "I thought you were going to some party,"

"Oh I am," Flora nodded, "But… I… Kind of wanted to talk to you." Flora looked down slightly.

"Flora, honey, what's wrong?" Julianna's gaze instantly softened; she knew her daughter was very sensitive.

"No, mum, I just wanted some advice," Flora sighed, sitting down on the stool next to her mother.

"Well this is a first," she laughed, "What's on your mind?"

"Okay…" Flora collected herself, "When you first started dating, did you care about what your parents thought of who you were dating?"

"What on earth do you mean? If you're dating some boy, I want to know about it." She said sternly. Flora gave a frustrated grunt and shook her head.

"No! No. I'm not dating anyone, I was just asking if you had ever avoided dating anyone because of what you thought your parents would think."

"Who is it, Flora? Is he a rapist? Is he abusive? A delinquent? A drug dealer? A pimp? I just want to make sure you're safe, sweetheart."

"Mum!" Flora seethed. "Okay. The same question AGAIN, except the guy is completely normal, does well in school, treats you well and all the rest."

"… What would anyone have to worry about with a guy like that?"

"-BUT you KNEW that it would EFFECT YOUR FAMILY if you were together." Flora held her head in frustration.

"I've never been in that kind of situation…" Her mother said thoughtfully, "I've only dated one person in my whole life,"

"Who?" Flora asked, before it slowly clicked into her mind. "Right… Dad… I knew that…" Julianna gave her a quick look of disbelief before continuing.

"Anyway, let me tell you-," She laughed a bit, "I was still living with my parents at the time, and you're father and I have… Well… We were _very _sexually active at the ti-," she was interrupted by Flora jumping up and sticking her fingers in her ears.

"I AM FINE NOT TO KNOW THIS." She exclaimed, and then waited with her eyes tightly closed until she was sure that her mother had stopped talking.

"- the bottom line is that my parents could tell that your father was a good person and that he'd be there for the long run. So I never had to care, but their opinion mattered to me, like I hope our opinions matter to you."

"Not really answering my question there, but thanks."

"Flora, what's going on? Why have you been acting like this lately?" Her mother frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"Your acting like you're in love but you don't want to be." Her mother said.

"Mum… It doesn't matter."

"Honey, it does matter!"

"Listen, Helia's waiting outside for me, so I'm going to go. I'll see you later," Flora left quickly.

Okay honey. Have fun at the party with-…" Julianna paused and thought for a moment. 'If you knew it would effect your family if you were together'. "-Helia… Ah."

~.~.~

"You ready?" Helia called, leaning against his parent's four by four. Flora smiled and nodded.

"Yeah. I wasn't sure what to get Stella, so I just bought her some bracelets, do you thin she'll be okay with that?" Flora asked, holding up a small green box wrapped in a deep pink bow.

"I don't think she's even expecting a gift from you Flo," he laughed, clicking open the car, "But on the other hand she's expecting loads from the rest of us."

"What did you get her?"

"She's been talking non stop about _Paramore _for a while now, she just discovered them, so I got her a t-shirt… And I also got her this box set of romantic comedies." Said Helia. They both got into the car and buckled themselves in. Helia started the engine and made his way to the club that they had hired out for Stella's party.

"How did you guys afford to hire out a club anyway?" Flora asked.

"Well, there were ten of us, which made it easy to split the cost evenly, we all saved up for a bit… And voila! Stella's a great friend, and such a sunny person. She's always there for everyone and won't stop until there's a smile on everyone's face, so we wanted to do something special for her." Helia laughed.

"How sweet!" Flora beamed, "You have the nicest group of friends, how did you ever all come together?"

"Pwor, that's a long story… So I guess it goes back to Stella and Bloom. Well, Stella and Bloom's mothers have been best friends since they were ten, and Stella was even there when Bloom was born, though she was only a baby at the time. They stuck together through out everything. Once they got to secondary school, they started freaking out over dating. They finally decided to ask out their crushes at the same time and arrange a double date, and those boys happened to be Sky and Brandon. So then there were four. Tecna continuously let Stella copy her homework, and when Stella actually got to know her she wanted to be friends with her, and then Tecna started dating Timmy, so he started hanging out with them. That makes six. Riven transferred to our school, said absolutely nothing to anyone and grunted at teachers. His locker was next to mine, so he was sort of kind of friends with me. Musa started feeling things, didn't have any very close friends and decided to confide in Stella that she liked him. Stella spread this around, as she always does, Riven found out and in the hall one day, when we were both getting our books; he called her over when she was passing. I kid you not, this is how it went down: Riven told her that he knew that she had a crush on him, Musa got incredibly anxious about it, and then Riven asked her out. He said this to me a bit later: 'if I knew a girl _that _hot was into me, then why the hell wouldn't I ask her out?'. Okay, so that makes eight… Nabu was friends with Musa, and she introduced him to Layla… They ended up hanging with the group too… And then Riven asked me if I wanted to go out with the lot of them one night… and I guess I just stuck with them…"

"Wow. That was a long story." Flora giggled, "Hey is that the club?" she pointed to a sleek, black building placed in-between two high-end stores.

"Yeah," Helia nodded, "I have no clue where I'm going to park though…"

~.~.~

"Flora! HEY!" Layla ran up to embrace the girl, "Oh hi Helia," she gave him a nod of recognition while still in Flora's arms.

"Layla, you do not know how touched I am," Helia sighed wistfully, plonking the two massive bags full of decorations on the ground. "Jeez that stuff is heavy."

"Flo? What's with the gas container?" Layla asked, Flora had quickly put it down while Layla was running for her.

"It's helium for the balloons!" she smiled.

"Awesome!"

"This club is amazing by the way," Flora said in awe, admiring the shiny black floors and the sleek bar. Musa was up at the decks sorting through some CDs, Tecna was with Timmy behind the bar (although it was safe to assume that she had other obligations), Bloom and Sky were sorting out the table of presents, and Nabu was eyeing up the yellow, three tier cake.

"Thanks! We came here once before, and we had the best time. We're going to go again next Friday, you should come!" Layla grinned.

"I'd love to!"

"Hokay…" Bloom walked over to the bags that Helia brought, "Bunting, fantastic, balloons, brilliant, confetti, fantazzaballs, and a piñata… a piñata?" Bloom asked, holding up the multi-coloured llama-shaped piñata. "A piñata? We're not six, Helia."

"Don't ask me!" he defended, "Layla asked me to bring it,"

"Layla?"

"Is there a more compelling way to get candy?" she shrugged, "besides, Stell LOVES to hit stuff."

"True that." Brandon walked in with two large bags full of presents.

"What's all that?" Sky asked him, taking a bag out of his hands.

"Last Christmas our full extended families spent the holiday together seeing as we've been together for almost five years now… And as it turns out my family loves her. My grandparents asked me to wish her a happy birthday and give her a gift from them, there are a few from my parents, my aunts… uncles… even my cousins!" Brandon huffed heavily, "If anything ever happens between us, I'm pretty sure they're going to cut me out of their life."

"Damn… And Stella makes the biggest fuss over every single present…" Riven rolled his eyes.

"OKAY. So, presents, decorations, music, food… Nabu, STEP AWAY FROM THE CAKE…and projector… That's it! All we have to do now is decorate before everyone else gets here!" Bloom beamed.

"Who else is coming?" Flora asked.

"ALL of Stella's friends, which is most of our year." Said Bloom, "Our plan is to have them all here when she walks in, party a bit, have a bit of food, shove them all out and have another little private party. Sound good?"

"Sure." Flora nodded. Layla laughed at the girl.

"Don't worry girl, I'll make sure you're not alone," Layla smiled. Flora giggled with relief.

"It's like you can read my mind,"

"Riven! Hold it UP!" Helia yelled, trying to tie the banner reading 'Happy Birthday Stella!' to the ceiling poles. Riven was yawning and holding it limply.

"You're not doing a very good job of it," he stated. This earned a slap from Musa, making him drop it all together.

"… Maybe some good healthy helium will help with my stress level," Helia said quietly as he stared at the banner lying on the floor.

"Have fun with your brain damage," Layla waved sweetly.

"Have fun with your face…" Helia muttered. Flora walked over and joined Helia who was picking up the small helium tank. "Hey,"

"Hey,"

"You're okay with… the majority of the year coming, aren't you?" he asked with a sound of concern in his voice.

"What? Of course I'm fine with it. It's only that I won't know many people apart from you and the others. Layla just said that she'd make sure I wasn't alone," Flora smiled.

"Well, later, you wouldn't deny your oldest friend a dance, would you?" he asked with a wink.

"Of course not," Flora giggled.

~.~.~

Ugh, sorry for the crappy chapter and late update. My face hit the wall with this chapter completely, so it's gonna be another 2-part thang.

It should be up a lot sooner than this one was xox


	9. Chapter 9

Hey! So I want to give a shout out to darkredheart who suggested that I put in some karaoke, and I though 'why the hell not? They're at a party, what's a party without some karaoke?' such a fun idea! I don't believe that I've used it in a story before, and no one loves a bit of karaoke more than moi ;) I'm not planning on having the lyrics take up my word count, so I'm not gonna add many verses of any of the songs I pick. CUZ AFTER SCROLLIN', YA GET THE IDEA. Oh, and what is that I hear? 'I bet you £1000000000000000 that you're going to add an Evanescence song?' … Well, I guess I'd better get to writing dem cheques.

Sorry for the wait- wasn't sure how to go about this chap, but here we are!

**Anything For You**

"So, we just connect the projector to the sound system using the HDMI cable like so…" Tecna clicked in the various wires, "And install this lyric-transferring program on to the computer… And voila! A homemade karaoke machine!" she beamed triumphantly.

"Well done Tec, you saved thirty quid on a karaoke machine by using your one thousand pound laptop, two-hundred pound projector and thousands of pounds worth of club hi-fi equipment. Frugality for the win!" Musa laughed.

"Hey, we have it, why not use it?" Tecna shrugged.

"Awesome! This party is going to be the best!" Bloom exclaimed, "Speaking of which, everyone should be arriving in five minutes, and Brandon! Your meeting Stella in twenty, so come on! Look lively!" She said as she clapped her hands quickly and chivvied Brandon out of the room.

~.~.~

"Excuse me… Sorry… Don't mind me…" Flora squeezed her way through the mass of people in the club. "Hell… Stella has a lot of friends?" she huffed, making her way over to Musa who was shuffling through records.

"Hey Flo!" she greeted with a grin.

"Hey," Flora smiled, "Do you know when Brandon's due back? He's taking forever,"

"He _should _be back any minute now, but Stella has her ways of distracting him," she giggled, rolling her eyes slightly. "Are you alright?"

"Just a bit tense." Flora smiled weakly, "You know the feeling when you know something's going to happen but you don't know what to do with yourself until that happens?"

"Oh sure," Musa nodded, "Luckily for me I'm on deck duty, you should probably go find Helia… He's probably chatting up some other girl… If you know what I mean…" Musa said quietly.

"No I don't know what you mean." Flora replied, a little stiffly. Musa stayed silent for a moment before thrusting her finger out and pointing into the corner of the room.

"OH LOOK, A THING!" she exclaimed loudly before diving behind the decks. Flora simply dismissed what had just happened and went to go find Helia. She pushed her way back through the crowd of people and spotted Helia laughing with some girl with long blonde hair.

"Hey Helia," Flora put her hand on his back, making him turn around and smile at her.

"Flora, hey!" he greeted her with a hug, "Let me introduce you to Diaspro, she just left our school for the private school in the same area as the old cinema,"

"Oh yeah, I know the place," Flora nodded, but grimaced at the memory of the old cinema. It closed down and was left to decay when Flora and Helia were in year five. At school, the class bully (who was not so aptly named Kenith) decided to pick on Flora, and when Helia defended her, Kenith decided to 'put Helia in his place'. After a verbal battle, they decided to have a competition to see who could stay inside the abandoned cinema the longest, which would end their argument (and none of them were really sure what it was about, but hey, they were nine). Helia and Flora won, only because Helia was fascinated and Flora was far too petrified to even think about letting go of Helia's arm. "Diaspro, what a pretty name!" Flora beamed, "I've heard of the word 'diaspora' which is usually related to the dispersion of Jews outside of Israel after the sixth century, but I've never heard of the name Diaspro before. What's its origin?" Flora asked politely. The blonde looked the girl up and down before raising an eyebrow.

"It could be Italian." She said with a monotone whilst shrugging.

"Oh." Flora said, a little taken back by her rude glare and blunt answer. Helia bit his lip from the growing tension and quickly intervened.

"… Okay, and Diaspro this is Flora, we've been best friends for as long as I can remember," he laughed wistfully.

"But Helia, I thought I was your best friend…" Diaspro smiled playfully and trailed her delicate, pale fingers up and down his abs. Flora's eyebrows rose higher yet.

"Helia…?" She asked quietly, instantly feeling awkward. "I'm sorry, are you two…?" Flora asked, she wouldn't usually be so bold, but if there was anything between the two of them then she had to know.

"Are we what?" Diaspro snapped. It was obvious she didn't have a soft spot for Flora in her heart.

"… Oh look, it's Bloom… I'm gonna go say hi, bye Helia, Diaspro," Flora turned away quickly and instantly felt her eyes well up. _'Why do I have to be so gosh darn sensitive?' _she thought to herself as she attempted to collect herself. After letting out a loud sigh, she stepped purposely towards Bloom. "Hey, Bloom!" she greeted the red head cheerily, giving her a hug. "Is everything set?"

"I can't believe it, but yes, finally!" she laughed, "Except for one thing,"

"What's that?"

"I know for a fact that _she _is _not _on the guest list," she frowned at something/someone behind Flora. Flora turned around and saw Diaspro continuing to lay her hands all over Helia. She turned away quickly.

"Diaspro?" she asked. Bloom nodded.

"You know her?"

"Helia just introduced me. Why isn't she on the guest list?"

"She dated Sky for a while, and when Sky and I started dating she instantly moved on to Brandon, even though he was already with Stella. She has no tact. She's been nothing but a bitch to us girls, whilst flirting with every guy she sees." Bloom said through gritted teeth, "I really don't like her, but Stella _despises _her. "

"She didn't seem totally friendly," Flora admitted out loud.

"Don't worry," Bloom chuckled, "She's been hitting on Helia since Stella slapped her in the face. Helia's a tough case to crack."

"I didn't say anything about liking Helia!" Flora said defensively on reflex. Bloom raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't say anything about you liking Helia either, but I know that you don't want your _best friend _to be dating a bitch like her." Said Bloom, "What's your deal?" Flora's eyes widened and she instantly wanted to melt into the floor. She decided to do a Musa and pointed into the corner.

"OH LOOK, A THING!" she yelled before running off to find someone else.

~.~.~

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY STELLA!" Everyone cheered as soon as Stella and Brandon walked into the club. A speechless Stella dropped her handbag and stumbled around hugging everyone she could see, and then gave Bloom the biggest cuddle of all.

"BLOOM YOU SLUT!" she yelled. "You KNOW I don't like anyone making a fuss over my birthday!" Everyone exchanged glances, knowing that this was not the truth. "OH MY GOD THIS CLUB IS AMAZING! THERE'S KARAOKE! A CAKE! PRESENTS! A PIÑATA! You guys, this is just the best!" she gushed, "Thank you all so much for coming! I NOW ORDER YOU TO DANCE!"

~.~.~

Flora was sitting at the side with a bottle of cola and her phone, poking around at it and watching everyone else dance. She didn't know what it was about a crowded environment, but it suffocated her brain and made her feel as though she shouldn't be there. Her green eyes rolled over to where Helia was dancing, with none other than Diaspro.

"Bitch…" Flora muttered before looking elsewhere; she had heard both Bloom and Stella refer to her as one, so she allowed herself to do so.

"WADDAP GUYS?!" Musa yelled into the microphone from the karaoke machine, everyone cheered, "We're gonna get our karaoke on, so if you would make your way to the machine of singing-i-ness… That would be most appeasing…" Everyone cheered again, as they knew it was perfectly possible that Musa had had one drink too many.

Flora pushed through the crowd and grabbed Layla's arm.

"Flora! Where have you been?" she exclaimed, hugging her, "I can't keep track of any one at parties…"

"Me first! Me first!" Stella ran up to the projector and took the microphone off Tecna.

"What song, birthday girl?"

"_Hmm… _This one!" Stella selected Primadonna Girl (Marina and the Diamonds) on Tecna's computer.

"_Primadonna girl, yeah__, __all I ever wanted was the world, I can't help that I need it all, the Primadonna life, the rise and fall__, __you say that I'm kinda difficult, but it's always someone else's fault__, __got you wrapped around my finger, babe, you can count on me to misbehave," _Stella struck an explosive pose and moved her gaze over to Brandon, "_Primadonna girl,_ _Would you do anything for me?_ _Buy a big diamond ring for me?_ _Would you get down on your knees for me?_ _Pop that pretty question right now, baby_, _beauty queen on a silver screen_, _living life like I'm in a dream_, _I know I've got a big ego_, _I really don't know why it's such a big deal, though" _Brandon rolled his eyes and shook his head with a small smile on his face for the rest of the song.

"YOU GO STELLA!" Bloom screamed, hugging her best friend as soon as she finished. "Never has a song been more aptly chosen… SO ANYWAY, WHO'S NEXT?"

"I'll go," Sky volunteered, smiling a bit. The guys laughed and pushed him towards the projector; Bloom stifled a giggle before joining the audience again.

"Choose something MANLY, dude!" Riven yelled, "BECAUSE KARAOKE COULD NOT BE MORE MANLY!" Musa struck her boyfriend on the arm, and Sky chuckled slightly before scrolling through the songs. (_Bulletproof Skin - Institute)_

"_I'm a waster boy, anti-master plan, been stuck inside this lonely room again, you get paranoid, see vultures circling, one slip then down comes the final curtain, until, you come, into your soul again, we'll be the worst of best friends, doesn't feel like Christmas in Hollywood, doesn't feel like we're ever going to make it home,"_

"_Burn, baby burn, strung out on a wire, heart in a cage, you're so full of desire, you need, fast hands, to deal with all the liars, so don't burn baby burn baby burn,"_

"YEAH SKY!" Bloom screamed as he picked her up and twirled her around.

"You know you're my fire…" he murmured in her ear, making Bloom giggle again.

"Who's next?" Flora felt a sharp force jab her towards the projector.

"Her." She turned around to see the blonde Diaspro smirking at her with her arms folded.

"N-no, I can't sing…"

"BULL. CRAP." Musa exclaimed from the audience, "YOU TAKE MUSIC WITH ME, BITCH."

"… Okay Muse, I'm going to get you some water…" Riven said, playing the part of the caring boyfriend, to everyone's surprise.

"C'mon Flo, it's just a bit of fun." Stella put an arm around her and walked her over to the screen, "Just pick something out and sing your lil' heart out,"

"I really don't want…"

"GO FLORA!" Helia yelled from the audience.

"Okay, I'll do it." Flora scrolled through the music and picked out a song that she felt described her situation with Helia perfectly. She took another look at the large audience, gulped, and then focused on the screen. _(Anything For You - Evanescence)  
_

"_I'd give anything to give me to you, can you forget the world that you thought you knew… If you want me, Come and find me, nothing's stopping you so please release me… I'll believe, all your lies, just pretend you love me, make believe, close your eyes, I'll be anything for you… Anything for you… I'll become your earth and sky, forever never die, I'll be… everything you need… I'll believe, all your lies, just pretend you love me, make believe, close your eyes, I'll be anything for you,"_

"WOO FLORA!" Layla screamed, "YOU ROCK!"

"Eh, thank… You," she said sheepishly, "I need a drink, dry throat… From the singing…" she said before slinking off behind everyone.

"ME NEXT!" Musa exclaimed, pushing in front of everyone.

"OH nononononono, you my dear, made me promise to NEVER EVER let you sing whilst drunk," Tecna held the girl back.

"I guess your right… Maybe I shouldn't become an Olympic skier after all… Maybe next spring, when the rain settles…"

"Musa, sit down," Riven sighed as he took her hand, "You can sing when you're not so completely over the limit…"

"Ey! You c-can't tell me what to do…" she slurred, "You ain't my babysitter!"

"… Yeeeeah, okay, lets get you that water."


	10. Chapter 10

Super sorry this took me so gosh darn long, just had some stuff that I was doing… You guys know how it is ^^ So anyway, R&R! Hope you enjoy~

**Anything For You**

Diaspro wrapped her hair up in a towel before falling on to her big, pink, fluffy bed. The party, for her, was fun, but it would have been even more fun if Stella hadn't threatened to pull out her hair if she stayed a moment longer.

_So how was the party?_

Her family travelled all over the world, and she had picked up a couple of friends over that time, and was still in contact with one of them.

_It was fine, except from some bitch totally hitting on my man. _Diaspro typed with a look of disgust on her face. What was her name again? Flena? Floo? Frank? Pssht. It wasn't like she cared.

_Ugh, I've so been there. What was she doing?_

_Being the biggest loser on the planet. She keeps showing off her stupid Latina or whatever figure in her stupid wannabe clothes. _Diaspro grumbled at the memory of her. A couple of minutes her passed, and then Diaspro then received a link to an image.

_That wasn't her, was it? I know it's a long shot, but someone I kind of knew moved to your area recently._

Diaspro opened the link to see a school photo, zoomed in on one particular girl.

_That's her. What was her name?_

_Flora. The slut made out with my boyfriend too. _Diaspro smirked at this; she highly doubted it, but then again, it worked to her advantage.

_Interesting… Tell me more, Maddie._

She had to know more. This information was delicious.

~.~.~

Helia sighed as he walked out of the gym holding his blue duffle bag. It was the day after the party, and he was feeling completely out of it. The combination of alcohol, cake and piñata sweets had gotten to his stomach and he needed to clear his head. He was happy the party had gone well, but he wasn't too keen on the way Diaspro had spoken to Flora. It wasn't like they had any history together at all. He liked them both, Diaspro as maybe just a friend and Flora as a whole lot more, and it's always frustrating when friends of friends don't get along. Helia looked across the road and saw the porcelain skinned and golden haired Diaspro waving to him, she was wearing a beige mini skirt with a red tube top. Something that only someone of her colouring could pull off.

"Hey Helia!" she carelessly ran across the busy street, "Wow, you look great! Have you been to the gym lately?"

"Well… I'm carrying a sports bag, and I just walked out of the gym so… yeah, I can't remember." He laughed, "What's up?"

"Well, I didn't realise but one of my distant friends was in the same class as your friend Flora before she moved back."

"Really? That's cool." He shrugged.

"Well… It's not though." Diaspro sighed, "Look…" she handed Helia her phone, and told him to read the texts from the middle. Helia's eyes grew wide and he looked back at Diaspro.

"… But I know Flora, she wouldn't-,"

"Oh she would. I know her type." Diaspro said sadly, "I just can't believe she did that to my friend."

"… I've got to go." Helia handed her phone back, "I'll see you soon."

"Not if I see you first." Diaspro laughed a little as he walked away.

~.~.~

"Okay Flora, I'm going to give you one last chance-," Stella narrowed her eyes, "Which one looks best on me? The blue or the green?"

"For the last time; the green one!" she sighed, the other girls weren't lying when they said Stella was hard to shop with.

"On second thoughts, maybe I'll get a dress…" she said as she wondered off. Flora rolled her eyes and sat down. They were getting into their third hour of shopping and Stella was giving no indication of stopping. Flora felt her phone vibrate and took it out.

_I have to talk to you. Where are you? -Helia_

Flora narrowed her eyes. A text from Helia with correct grammar and no kisses. This was weird.

_I'm in Topshop with Stella… are you okay? -Flora xox_

He didn't text back, which was odd for him. Flora bit her lip. What did she do? What was going on? She then saw Helia outside, and he motioned for her to go and meet him.

"Stella… I'll be back in a minute,"

"I'll be counting down the seconds!" she called back. Flora walked out of the shop, and Helia was standing there with an odd expression on his face.

"Helia? What's wrong?" she asked. He shuffled uncomfortably and cleared his throat.

"I was talking to Diaspro earlier, and she was telling me about one of her distant friends…"

"Okay, Helia? You have realised that Diaspro really doesn't like me, right?" Flora sighed.

"Her friend's name is Maddie, does that ring any bells?" he said. Flora froze up. Maddie couldn't just leave her alone. She had to find a way to screw everything up for her again.

"Helia… What have you heard?" she asked.

"I don't know, what do you think I've heard?" he snapped.

"Helia, calm down, it's not-, do you really want to trust anything Diaspro or someone you don't even know says about me?"

"Flora, don't you dare try to deny this." He said through his teeth, "I just want to know why you did it."

"But I didn't DO ANYTHING!" Flora exclaimed, "It was a misunderstanding that ruined my life!" Helia didn't respond. She didn't like this. She had never seen this side of him before. She couldn't stand it.

"Tell Stella I had to go." She pushed passed him and walked away without looking back.

"Flora, wait! Listen-," Helia said, but Flora snapped back around again.

"No YOU listen!" she exclaimed, "There's a reason I didn't say ANYTHING about where I was before, I could hardly function without you! Don't you get it? I couldn't even make a single friend without you there! And then that stupid guy just… And then… Wha-why would you believe a complete stranger and not me? Helia, I thought you knew be better than that!" she ran away before Helia could say anything else. He felt as though a part of him had left with her, they had never fought before (nothing but play fighting), and he couldn't think properly without knowing Flora would always be there for him. He instantly regretted everything; he should have just calmly let her know what he found out, and then let her explain herself. Why was he so angry?

~.~.~

"Layla… I… Have… To… Talk to… You…" Flora said on the phone through sobs.

"_Flora what's wrong?" _Layla said on the other line sympathetically.

"Just come over to my house please, thank you, goodbye…" she put the phone down and pulled her legs up to her chest. Madison had really done it this time; she had turned from sweet the sour the day it happened. And without even trying, she had just screwed up her relationship with Helia.

"Flora?" Layla let herself into her room, "Flora what happened?" she sat next to Flora on her bed and put an arm around her.

"Helia found out about what happened with that guy who kissed me…" she said croakily.

"What? How? …Wasn't he supportive?" Layla said, confused.

"He didn't find out from me, he found out from Diaspro, because she's pen friends with the girl whose boyfriend kissed me…"

"So… He heard it the way everyone at your old school heard it…" said Layla quietly, "But wait, that's not fair! Helia knows you better than you know yourself, he knows that you would never do something like that…"

"He just seemed so angry…" Flora sighed, "Anger could have blinded him… but I just don't understand why he would be so angry…" Layla frowned. The only word circling her mind was 'jealousy'.

"Talk to him, maybe he just wasn't thinking…"

"Layla… I _can't…_"

"Why not? You tell each other everything!"

"Well, maybe not everything…"

"Flora… What haven't you told me?" Layla sat directly in front of her on the bed, while Flora shuffled uncomfortably under her stare.

"I can't be without him, Layla… I'm in love with him." Flora said, shaking as she felt the words come out of her mouth. Layla blinked a couple of times and stared at Flora without saying anything. Above everything, she was surprised that both Flora and Helia had confided in her to admit their feelings to. But what was she going to do about it? What _could _she do about it? Technically, it wasn't even any of her business. She wanted to exclaim 'why me?!' to Flora, but she wouldn't have a clue what she was talking about it. "Layla, stop staring at me like that, it's freaky,"

"Oh, sorry, I blanked, " Layla said suddenly, "Did you say that you love him?"

"Yes, I did," she squeaked.

"Are you sure it's love?"

"I'm _certain._"

"Well… Flora, you've gotta tell him. Go to him and make him hear you out, tell him everything. He may or may not return those feelings but… That's just a risk you're gonna have to take."

"But… Our families are so close and… if he refused me then I just wouldn't be able to face him."

"Don't think about it like that. All you have to do is talk to him. Tomorrow. Sleep on it, get your thoughts straightened out, and then go over to his place and just talk about everything. Whether you're not on terms or whatever, you both possess the wonderful ability to just talk to each other rather than using your fists."

"Okay… I guess your right. I'll talk to him tomorrow. Thanks Layla, I'm sorry to dump all this on you… But I'm just so grateful that you went out of your way to make me feel so welcome," Flora smiled, wiping the tears away from her eyes.

"Aw, girl!" Layla squeezed the brunette tightly, "You're just the sweetest little thing, aren't you? No matter what, I will always have your back, okay sweet heart?"

"Okay…"

"Good luck for tomorrow, hun."


	11. Chapter 11

**Anything For You**

"Rise and shine sweetie-pie!" Laurel swept into her son's bedroom and whipped open his curtains, "Another beautiful day awaits!"

"Huffffnnneeeegaaameeeeeeeeee rrrrrggghh…" Helia moaned with his face in his fluffy blue pillow, "I don't want to get up,"

"Well, you've got to. Your father and I are going out for breakfast with Flora's parents, and the boilers leaking. You have to go downstairs, and keep an eye on it." She pulled the covers off him.

"Okay, okay…" He sighed.

"No, I mean it." She said sternly. "If you even take an eye off it, I will make sure you suffer…" she narrowed her eyes at him. "Hey, wait a minute…"

"What?"

"Weren't you meant to be having a sleepover with Flora last night?" she asked, looking out his window and seeing Flora still tucked up in bed.

"Oh… Yeah…" Helia sighed, fidgeting with his hands a little, "We forgot."

"But you guys never forget about stuff like this," she pondered, "When you two were little, you looked forward to your sleepovers like Christmas, counting down the days."

"Well… We're older now." He got out of bed and walked downstairs.

"Helia…" Laurel followed him into the kitchen, where he was getting out the almost empty box of cornflakes.

The doorbell rang, and Flora's parents let themselves in.

"Knock knock?" Julianna smiled, "Good morning guys,"

"Julie honey!" Laurel hugged her, "Good morning,"

"Hey Helia, you wouldn't happen to know what's wrong with Flora, would you?" Julianna sighed, putting her handbag on the kitchen table. "She came in at lunchtime yesterday, ran straight up to her room and hasn't been down since. Layla came over, but she didn't tell me what was wrong."

"Oh… Uh… I-I don't know." Helia said, quickly turning around and stuffing his face with cornflakes. Julianna shrugged.

"Maybe she just needs some peace and quiet. Be a dear and check on her won't you? I worry about the girl."

"O-of course." Helia scratched the back of his head. '_I don't think she'll want to see me though…' _he thought sadly.

"Great, see you later!" Julianna gave him a kiss on the cheek and ruffled his hair. "We don't know how long we'll be."

"I thought you were just going out for breakfast," Helia raised an eyebrow.

"So did I, but then Julie booked us tickets to see _Dirty Dancing _in 3D at the cinema, and then informed me that she needed about three-million things from the mall." Flora's dad, Mark, shook his head slowly.

"We said that we'd stay with them, for moral support." Helia's dad, Josh, said.

"Okay then, have fun I guess…" Helia waved them off.

"Bye bye, don't forget about Flora,"

"I wouldn't." Helia said quietly as they shut the door behind them. Just then, his phone rang. He looked at the screen, the word Diaspro flashing at him. "Oh I am not in the mood." He hit the red button and threw his phone over to the couch on the other side of the room.

"Okay, it's now or never." Helia sighed, slipping on his shoes and walking out the front door. He wasn't dressed, but he didn't really care all that much. He let himself in to Flora's house.

"Flora, are you here? We should talk." he called up the stairs. No answer. "Flora?" He walked upstairs and knocked gently on Flora's door. "Flo?"

"I-I don't want to talk to you right now." Flora squeaked from the other side.

"Come on Flo. We're both here and we're alone. Let's talk."

Flora sighed and thought about what Layla had said the other day. She wanted to talk to him, but she wanted some time to collect herself first; she didn't think that he would come to her.

"I wanted to say sorry… I should have listened to you. I was just mad- I wasn't even thinking. Please Flora, let me see your face."

"Okay, okay, come in…" said Flora. Helia opened the door to see Flora sitting up in her bed, wearing her strawberry-print pyjama shorts and a lacy light pink camisole.

"Hey…" he walked over to her and sat down on her bed.

"Hey…"

"So…"

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Flora blurted out, surprising Helia.

"I don't think you should be the one apologising," said Helia, "I'm the one who snapped at you without thinking."

"Why wouldn't you just confront me calmly and just let me explain myself?" Flora asked.

"I said… I wasn't thinking… But if you forgive me, I'd like to hear you out," Helia choked, avoiding eye contact with the brunette.

"Helia, of course I forgive you… But I still don't know whether I want to tell you about what happened."

"… Why not?" Helia asked sadly, "Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you!" Flora exclaimed, appalled. "You're just not the person I want to talk about this to. I've already told Layla about it, so I'd rather just keep it behind me."

"At least tell me whether what Diaspro and this 'Maddie' person told me was true or not."

"No!"

"Was there any element of truth to it or not?" he asked, making Flora roll her eyes slightly.

"No! … Well, actually, maybe a little…" Flora squeaked awkwardly, shuffling under her duvet.

"You mean you actually…"

"No, I…" Flora sighed heavily, "I'll tell you what happened, but don't tell my parents, your parents, or any one else."

"I wouldn't have done anyway," he smiled a little.

Flora looked down at her hands and anxiously began to describe her old situation for the second time, but the most difficult time. Helia listened, and put a hand on her shoulder, careful not to grip too hard because of the new boiling rage building up inside him as she continued to talk.

"… And that's why I didn't have any friends back there." Flora said sadly, rubbing her eyes. Helia didn't say anything for a moment- he didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth to say something sweet and comforting, but then decided to go a different route.

"You know what would have happened to that guy if I was there?"

"What?" Flora sniffed.

"He would still have trouble walking, forget about having children." Helia said in the most serious of tones. Flora looked at him for a moment, reluctantly cracked a grin and then burst into uncontrollable laughter. Helia laughed too, and pulled her into a hug, "Come here…" he knew that all Flora really needed was some cheering up. "I can't believe you've locked that away for all this time, though."

"Well it wasn't something I wanted anyone over here to know… I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

"It's fine, honestly. I'm sorry I forced it out of you…"

"It's fine." Flora replied quickly. Seeing as she had just told Helia about something she swore never to even think about again, she felt it was fair that she got an answer from him about something in particular. "Helia, can you do something for me?"

"Sure, what?"

"DON'T. DATE. DIASPRO." Flora said whilst looking straight into his eyes. "It's easy to remember, just think about it as the 'triple D',"

"Oh don't worry about that!" Helia laughed, "I don't like her in that way anyway, I get she doesn't have a very good past with the girls, but she hasn't given me a reason to hate her as such yet, but Stella already wrote me a list of 50 ways she would kill me if I brought her into the friendship group."

"… 50 ways she would kill you?"

"They mainly consisted of hitting me with a pair of platforms in some way, shape or form."

"Of course…" Flora said blankly, "Only Stella," she giggled.

"… Um, Flora?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we okay now?"

"Yeah," she smiled, and gave him another hug. "Let's not argue again, you're such a great frien… perso… frerson." She didn't want to say the word 'friend', or the word 'person' so she ended up saying both. Helia raised an eyebrow at her.

"Flora, you're really weird,"

"Speak for yourself!" she hit him on the arm, and then sighed, "It's a shame we didn't have our sleepover."

"Well, of course we're going to have it tonight," said Helia, as though it were obvious.

"But what if I'm busy?"

"Are you busy?"

"No,"

"Okay, we're on then."

_~ A/N ~_

_Hey everyone, I had no clue where I was going with this chapter, but I kind of wanted the story to be a bit longer so this chapter didn't end as I expected to… I hope you enjoyed it anyway!_


	12. Chapter 12

Oh my gosh, I can't believe this took so long! Just warning you now, I will not be updating until the end of June. I've got my exams, and I don't want to screw up my life because of fanfiction, that would be depressing. Anyway, on with this chapter!

**Anything For You**

"Are you sure you two will be alright?" Julianna looked at Flora and Helia with motherly concern in her eyes. The two of them raised an eyebrow at her.

"Mum. I'm sixteen and Helia's seventeen. Yes you can leave us both alone until midnight."

"I do worry about you, petal," Julianna hugged her tightly.

"You left me alone this morning! Now just get to this party before it finishes!" Flora laughed, pushing her mother away from her.

"Remember guys, check on the boiler." Laurel said, narrowing her eyes at Helia, who had left it alone that very morning. When they got home, they found that the kitchen was covered in water. It was a good thing for Helia that looks couldn't kill. Laurel agreed that Flora could sleepover at their place, on the condition that they check the kitchen each hour, and on the condition that Helia cleared up the water on his own. "Have fun kids!" she waved warmly at Flora as her husband took her by the shoulders and pulled her outside.

"Don't get into too much trouble!" Julianna giggled as she shut the door softly behind her.

"So," said Helia.

"So." Said Flora.

"What first?" he asked.

"TV?"

"TV."

~.~

"Man you have a lot of DVDs…" Flora said as she rifled her way through his TV cabinet, "And videos? You still have videos?" she turned around and looked at him; he was sitting upside down on his sofa, and his white tee was falling up and exposing a little bit of his abs. _Nice._ Flora couldn't stop herself from thinking that.

"Yeah, duh, don't you remember our video camera?" he said as though it were obvious.

"What? That MASSIVE thing that was bigger than me at the time?" Flora laughed, "Yeah I remember, are these the old videos?"

"Yeah,"

"Am I in any of these?"

"Duh, pretty much all of them,"

"… Can we watch them?" Flora crawled over to Helia's head and made her best puppy-dog eyes at him.

"Aw, how can I resist that face?" he said as he pinched her cheeks. "Sure… But we need to set up first." He said as he flipped of the couch.

"… set up?"

"You. Pyjamas. Now."

"Yeah, okay, _master,_" she giggled and went upstairs to Helia's room where she had left her sleepover bag. Helia laughed and shook his head, and then went into the kitchen (checked the boiler, of course) and grabbed an armful of crisp packets, sweets and toffee popcorn (their shared favourite type of popcorn).

"You ready Flo?" he called.

"Yeah!" she yelled back, "Why is there a photo of Brandon wearing nothing but his underwear striking a _Beyoncé _pose?" she asked.

"Don't touch my secret-blackmailing-Brandon-photo!"

"Well that was all the explanation I needed." She laughed, walking down the stairs. She was wearing a light pink camisole with white lace and small blue shorts with a ditsy pink floral pattern, the camisole was short and her shorts hit her around the hips so a little bit of her lacy pink underwear was showing. She met Helia at the bottom of the stairs, smiled at him, stole the popcorn, and then walked away laughing.

_Flora, you have got to stop doing this to me. _He sighed.

"If I remember correctly… The video is placed into the video player, like so…" Flora placed in a video that read 'Summer 2002', "And then you press play," Flora pressed the big green button, but nothing happened. "Okay Helia you do it." He sighed, and turned on the TV. Flora slapped his arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Showing me up!"

"But there's no one else here…"

"Shut up!" she slapped him again, and then made herself comfy on the sofa.

"I don't know why I put up with you," he muttered sarcastically, rubbing his slightly reddened arm. He sat down next to her and pressed 'play' on the TV remote. An image of his younger self appeared on the screen, holding a massive video camera in front of a mirror.

"_Would you look at that, it's Helia Spielberg!" _chuckled his dad in the background, Josh.

"I can't believe you managed to hold up that thing! You looked so tiny in comparison to it," said Flora.

"Well, I have these guns for a reason," he said as he flexed his muscles, winking at her. Flora, unimpressed, held up her hand.

"Do you want me to slap you again?"

"No thank you," he quickly retreated.

"_Are you going to tell the camera what we're going to do today Helia?" _Laurel appeared in the screen.

"_Yes, we're going to the lake with Flora and Julianna and Mark!" _little Helia said enthusiastically, "_It's really hot today, and we're going to go swimming and have ice-cream and have the best picnic ever!_"

"AWW!" Flora hugged Helia tightly, "YOU ARE JUST THE CUTEST!"

"_Are you looking forward to seeing Flora again?" _Laurel asked the little boy, who nodded his head vigorously, "_And do you think she's pretty?" _He instantly looked back at his mother and pulled a face at her.

"_Muuuuuuuuuum!"_ he whined, "_Can we just go already?"_

"_Alright honey, get your swimming things and we'll go meet them, now turn this thing off, we want to save some battery for the rest of the-," _The film cut away and then cut straight back to the view of a rich blue lake from the crisp green grass.

"_I want to go swimming now!" _ A small girly voice said from behind the camera, which spun around to show little Flora with a high ponytail in a pink bow and a frilly pink bikini with a little skirt.

"_We only just got here, Flora, give it a few minutes!" _Julianna laughed, she was the one holding the camera.

"You little sweet-tums you!" Helia pinched her cheeks and put an arm around her.

"_That's a very impressive piece of equipment you've got there, Josh," _said Mark as the camera swivelled round to the view of a red and white gingham picnic blanket and a large basket. Helia was sitting in front of Laurel, who was running her fingers through his thick, messy hair, and Flora waddled over to Helia and sat next to him.

"_Thanks Mark, my boss was buying himself one of those fancy new hand-held miniature video cameras, so he just offered this one to me. I couldn't say no- we've never had a video camera before!"_

"_Kids, do you want food now or after a little swim?" _Laurel asked the two of them.

"_Swim!" _Flora complained, folding her arms.

"_Okay missy," _Laurel laughed_, "You guys can go ahead but don't go passed the flagpole, and Helia be good!"_

"_Film us!" _Helia demanded as he took Flora's hand and pulled her off to the lakes edge_, "ARE YOU FILMING US?" _He called back_._

"_Yes!" _Julianna exclaimed_, "MAKE A BIG SPLASH FOR THE CAMERA!"_

"_3…2…1… JUMP!" _Flora exclaimed and then made a massive squeal as the two of them jumped together. Their parents started to clap and cheer, and then the camera cut to the view of Flora and Helia splashing each other in the water, and then it cut to the picnic. Helia was sitting in a big fluffy orange towel, and Flora was sitting in a pink one. The rest of the tape was just as Flora and Helia fought over the grapes, ate some sandwiches, went for another swim and then played some more Frisbee.

As it came to an end, Flora (current Flora) sighed wistfully.

"We should go back to that lake soon."

"Yeah, we should," Helia agreed.

"It's funny… I felt as though my life had been put on hold when I was away from you… I really missed you Helia, and I love…" Flora paused, her mind was working at 1000 miles an hour to figure out whether this was a good thing to say or not, "… being around you," she said finally, then sighed heavily.

"I missed you too: my entire way of life had been torn away from me,"

"I'm your way of life?" Flora laughed.

"That's right Flo, you're my way of life; my religion. Call me a Flora-ist. No, a florist." They both laughed, "but seriously, I don't know why but I always felt better when I had… someone to defend, protect or whatever. It would be weird if I called you my 'legacy' or something but… You drive me insane, Flora, I don't know how I made it without you, I don't know how anyone makes it without you, your like… water- everyone needs it." He started to laugh again, "Sorry, that was a really creepy way of putting it," Flora put her arms around him and closed her eyes gently. He folded his arms around her and stroked her soft, fragrant hair.

"I didn't know I had that impression on you," she giggled softly.

"I'm going to ask you something now…" Helia said cautiously, was he really going to do this?

"… What?" Flora replied slowly.

"If you disagree and wish I hadn't said anything, you can go home, sleep, and then tomorrow we'll pretend that nothing happened but-,"

"Come on Helia, just tell me, what's on your mind?" she smiled sweetly. He sighed.

"Will you go out with me?"

There was a really long silence. Neither of them dared to move.

Helia was dreading what was coming next.

Flora was wondering what was coming next.

She finally pulled away from him so she could see his face and his eyes; was he serious or not?

The phone rang, scaring the both of them. Whether it meant that they had been saved by the bell or not was debatable. Helia got up and picked up the home phone.

"Hello? … Oh, hi mum … Yeah, we're doing fine… No, the house hasn't flooded… Wait, what?" Helia opened the curtains to see a blizzard of snow harshly coming down and piling up on the earth, Flora gasped from the sofa. "We didn't realize… You can't come home? Where are you? … That's miles away! … Okay, okay, see you tomorrow, bye." Helia put the phone down and looked back at Flora. "Our parents are staying in a motel until the blizzards stopped and the roads have been cleared."

"Oh… Okay,"

"Do you want some pizza?" Helia started to walk into the kitchen but Flora suddenly put a soft hand on his shoulder.

"Wait, Helia," he turned around to face her, "Are you seriously just going to pretend that you didn't say what you just said?"

"It's up to you."

Silence.

"… So, do you think we can get a pizza delivered at ten o'clock at night?" Helia asked. Flora looked down. She wanted to say yes, but she felt embarrassed for feeling anything at all, and she didn't know why. "Oh, right, the snow. I guess not."

Silence.

"Flora, I'm sorry I said anything at all, okay…" Helia sighed, "I guess I was just feeling-," Flora shook her head vigorously.

"No, don't be sorry!" she giggled sweetly, "I'd love to go out with you… I just didn't realise you'd actually ask me…"

"Seriously?"

"Yes," Flora smiled, and he smiled back.

"I can't believe we're actually going to do this…"

"Me neither…"

"I feel as though I have a right to say this now: you look really hot." Helia winked. Flora stared at him for a minute and then burst out laughing.

~.~.~

_A/N_

_I decided to go a different route this time, for me it's usually like 'omg flora I want you Ive been wanting 2 tel while' 'omg helia I feel the same way' and then que the making out. This time, I'm going to take things a bit slower and experiment with the relationship a bit._

_I don't know what I mean by that either._

_Anyway guys, see you in June! I'll miss you! Mwah! xox_


	13. Chapter 13

Well I'm back! I hope you guys had a gooood exam period if you had one at all, I know I didn't .  
I'm sorry this chapter took me so long to get up, I sort of forgot how to write.

Before you laugh, I'm not kidding.

You know when you just forget everything you've ever learnt after an exam? Yeah, that happened.

I was working with 4-5 year olds for my work experience, and a little boy asked me how to spell 'alien', _and I sat there for 5 mins trying to work it out._

**Anything For You**

Winter was in full swing; the snow had finally seemed to stop falling but everyone was wrapping warm and enjoying the soft white blanket that was covering the ground. It was Wednesday, and Helia had gone straight to his bedroom to work on his Geography assignment, but there was one thing he couldn't get off his mind.

"… And we're going out on Saturday night, Flora's parents and my parents are going to a business convention in the city, so we'll be safe until the time is right to tell them." Helia sat on his bed and spoke into the receiver.

"_I'm so happy for you!" _Brandon said in a high-pitched voice on the other line.

"Shut up, I was just letting you know." Helia rolled his eyes.

"_I can't wait to tell Stella, she's so goin-,"_

"Don't tell Stella. Flora and I are keeping this quiet until we know whether this relationship is going anywhere or not, and if it doesn't, we're just going to pretend it never happened."

"_You've never stopped me telling anyone anything before, why start now?"_

"Uh, photo, Brandon, the photo." Helia said smugly. He heard Brandon choke on the other line.

"_I-… Ugh, FINE." _He pouted_, "You just HAD to have that camera when I was demonstrating how Beyoncé SHOULD move that booty."_

"… Isn't Stella a lucky girl?"

"_That she is."_ Brandon agreed.

~.~.~

"WEDNESDAY MILKSHAKES. BRILLIANT IDEA! Now, girl, tell me, who was it who thought of this incredible tradition?" Layla said dramatically and finished with a slurp of her favourite chocolate milkshake. Flora just laughed and took a small sip of her own strawberry one.

"It was you…" She sighed, indulging her friend in the satisfaction.

"Really now?" Layla said with fake surprise.

"Hey, I have some news," Flora straightened herself out and put on a serious expression, so Layla did the same.

"… Are you pregnant?" she said with a straight face. Flora shook her head slowly. "Couldn't help it." She smirked.

"… Anyway, Helia's taking me out on Saturday night. We're going to give it a go."

"Give what a go?"

"A relationship, Layla."

"Are you being for serious right now?!" Layla exclaimed, "I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"

"I am being SO for serious!" Flora exclaimed, "I'm really happy for me too! But don't tell anyone, okay? If this doesn't work out, we've agreed that we're just going to be friends,"

"Sure thing girl," Layla nodded, "So, do you know where you guys are going yet?"

"We were talking about it the other day, you know, the winter festival is this Saturday night so we thought we'd just go together."

"Hey that's right! Oh my gosh, I LOVE the Winter festival! The food, the rides, the games, the fireworks! They'd better clear up the snow before they set up, they're not using weather as an excuse,"

"I heard they're clearing up and sheltering the field until the day."

"How about this snow though? It feels like only a few days ago when we sunbathing at the beach, and it's so thick, Stella hasn't been able to wear her stiletto heels in days, the poor thing!"

"I love the snow, it's so much fun! Helia and I used to go sledging all the time when we were little," Flora beamed.

"Oh no, snowball fights are the _best _part," Layla said slyly.

"Well, I'm gonna get the bus home," Flora said quickly, not wanting to be made into a snowman at the hands of Layla.

"Boo, you're boring," she huffed.

~.~.~

~ Saturday Night ~

~FLASHBACK~

"_Julie, it's so good to see you." Laurel gave her best friend a kiss on the cheek and fell into the café chair, "It's been forever,"_

"_We had dinner together yesterday."_

"_Forever." Laurel repeated again with extra emphasis. "Anyway, it's good to be able to just dump the kids in school and have a coffee, am I right?" the woman laughed, Julianna nodded in agreement._

"_They can be a little wearing." She giggled._

"_Aren't they cute together though?" Laurel cooed, flipping through the pictures on her phone, "Aw, look at this one!"_

"_They're very sweet together, I wish it could stay that way forever, but I suppose they'll grow apart from each other when they start dating."_

"_Hey! I've just had an idea!" Laurel exclaimed as she slapped her hand on the table, making Julianna jump._

"_What?"_

"_What if they dated? And then got married? Then we'd really be a family!" Laurel said excitedly._

"_That's not something we're going to be able to force, as great as it would be."_

"_Darn." Laurel pouted. "Well maybe we could just give them some friendly encouragement?"_

"_Okay then, we'll see how it turns out!" Julianna laughed._

Flora and Helia were both about eight years old when Laurel and Julianna first thought about the prospect of the two of them ever becoming more than friends. Julianna never thought anything would happen, but ever since Flora had spoken to her, she had her suspicions. Even by observing Helia she could tell that something was a little off.

"Okay mum, have fun at the convention, I'm meeting Helia outside, bye," Flora came rushing down the stairs wearing a denim pinafore with a beige turtleneck jumper underneath it and lace up black boots.

"Wait wait wait!" Julianna called. Flora halted at the door with her jacket half on.

"What?"

"We have to talk,"

"Oh mum, about what? I'm already late, Helia's going to wonder where I am," Flora groaned.

"I want to talk about Helia," Julianna said softly, patting the place on the sofa next to her.

"What? Really? Ugh, fine, but make it quick." Flora sat down next to her mother.

"Do you remember a couple of months ago when you were mumbling something vague about dating and whether or not we would care about who you went out with?" said Julianna.

"I was trying to have a heart to heart conversation with you, it wasn't vague mumbling!" Flora rolled her eyes.

"You've always been a bit of a mumbler." Julianna said quickly.

"What was that?"

"I'm sorry honey, but as your mother it's my job to point out what you need to work on."

"Get on with it."

"After thinking about it for a while, I realised who you were talking about."

"Y-you did?" Flora sighed.

"You know your father and I think Helia's fantastic, and we love him like he's yo brotha' from anotha' motha',"

"That doesn't even make sense for you, as my mother, to say that. Don't ever do that again."

"-Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that what ever you decide to do, you will always have my love and support. I can't speak for your father, but this is your relationship, not ours. You can date whoever you want, the only rule is that you have to be honest with us. Besides, Helia's a nosh, why wouldn't you want to date him?"

"Don't ever call Helia a nosh ever again, but… It's really good to hear you say that," Flora smiled and hugged her mother, "As long as I'm being honest with you, it may interest you to know that I'm going on a date with Helia right now so I really can't be late-,"

"WHAT? But we'll be out when you get back… Flora Linphea you had better not try anything funny while we're out-,"

"ARE YOU INSANE?"

"I told you that your father and I were VERY sexually active when we were your age, and had a lot of pregnancy scares! I don't want you to go through the same thing. Oh, we were getting up to all sorts…."

"I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!" Flora ran out of the house and slammed the door.

~.~.~

"Two tickets to the festival please," Helia asked an elderly volunteer at the gates to the field.

"Of course dear, that'll be seven pounds then please," Helia got out his wallet and turned to Flora, "I'll get the tickets you get the candy floss,"

"Deal!" Flora laughed.

"There you are, the fireworks start at nine o'clock, have a good time, and be careful of the snow," she said warmly.

"Thank you!" Flora called as they quickly walked to the fair, "So, what shall we do first?"

"Obviously we're going on all the rides, so, how about we get things started with the ghost train ride?" Helia asked. Flora froze up.

"You know what happened last time…" She said through a squeak.

"I'd never be able to forget that. You jumped right out of the cart and ran all the way back to the start!" He laughed. "C'mon, it'll be fun! You've gotten better with horror films since then, pleeeeeeeease?"

"FINE. You owe me a doughnut for this one." She huffed and grabbed his arm again. They walked towards the ghost train and got into one of the carts. "You know what? I don't know about this, I think we should go on…. That one over there!" She pointed to a small caterpillar shaped rollercoaster with about five toddlers on it. The metal bars clicked into place. "Okay too late." Helia laughed and put an arm around her.

"It'll be fine, if you get scared, squeeze my hand and I'll cover your eyes." Helia said, but just as he said it, Flora started to squeeze his hand relentlessly.

The ride started with a loud scream and siren and the carts started to move through the door.

"OH MY GOSH THERE'S SOMETHING ON MY WAIST! … Oh, Helia, it's you… cool," Flora said quickly, Helia smiled and pulled her closer.

The next few minutes consisted of Flora yelping this various phrases numerous times:

"Are we vertical!?"

"What was that!?"

"Who's that?!"

"WHERE'S YOUR HAND I NEED TO SQUEEZE IT!"

Once the cart pulled up and halted at the entrance, Flora casually walked out and brushed herself off. Helia couldn't contain his laughter.

"What are you laughing at? Someone needs to grow up I reckon, maybe grow a pair too it'll help you to be less scared." She smirked. "CAN WE GO AGAIN?!"

"C'mon Flo, we have everything else to go on!"

"You're no fun." Flora huffed.

"FLORA! HEY!" Layla called. She ran up to the two of them and gave them a hug. Nabu soon arrived, walking at a normal speed behind his hyperactive girlfriend.

"Hey Layla!" Flora greeted, "Are you having a good time?"

"Oh you know it! Nabu are going around ALL the game booths and seeing who can get the highest score, and once we've tallied up the scores from all the booths, the loser is carrying the winner home!" Layla grinned, "And you know the winner's gonna be me,"

"Oh hell no! It is you who will have the pleasure of carrying _this _home," Nabu exclaimed. "How about you guys? Do you wanna join us?"

"LIKE THEY CAN KEEP UP WITH US!" said Layla, sharing a secret look with Flora. "We can leave you guys alllooooonnee. BYE!" And with that, Layla bounded off.

"Uh, bye guys, see you at the fireworks… LAYLA! WAIT!"

"Okay then… So, what next?" Helia turned to Flora and asked.

"… RACE YOU TO THE SPINNING TEACUPS!"

~.~.~

"I love fireworks, they're so beautiful!" Flora beamed, standing in the middle of the crowd and holding a bag of candyfloss.

"It would be better if we weren't standing around waiting in the fricking cold though." Helia huffed, putting an arm around Flora.

"Cheer up sweetie pie, here, have some candyfloss," she smiled warmly and shoved some of the candy into Helia's mouth.

"Hey guys, hooooooows it gooooooooooooin'?" Musa waved her arms manically and stumbled towards the two of them, with Riven following.

"Musa? Are you… Drunk?" Flora asked as Musa walked straight into her, pushing her straight out of Helia's grasp.

"May-Maybe-," Musa hiccupped and put her hands on Flora's shoulders, "A little, I'M A BIT OF A LIGHTWEIGHT," she hissed.

"How did this happen?" Helia asked. Riven put a hand on his forehead.

"Musa beat me at the ring toss, so she made me buy her a beer with my ID. I don't understand, that's _all _she had, she didn't even finish the can!"

"SHUT (Hic) UP! You don't KNOW me! Stop trying to change me!" And with that, she ran off.

"Crap. I'd better go after her. If she buys an inflatable hammer we're all screwed." Riven waved goodbye and ran back to the fair.

Helia sighed. This first date wasn't going as well as he had hoped it would. Flora had always been his best friend and it was difficult treating as anything more or less than that, and the interruptions from certain drunk friends weren't helping.

"Hey, Flo?"

"Yes?"

"Do you want to go watch the fireworks from somewhere a little more private?"

"Like where?" Flora tilted her head to one side.

"We could go to the hill." Helia pointed to the hill covered in trees, it looked deserted enough.

"Uh-I… Okay."

~.~.~

"… AND THIS ONE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY FLESCO, EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS."

"It would be a lot more romantic if every single firework wasn't sponsored." Flora sighed, sitting in the snow and holding her head in her hands.

"… THIS ONE IS ON THE BEHALF OF SCHMASDA, SAVING YOU DOSH EVERY DAY."

"Err… Yeah." Helia sighed sadly. "Maybe we could go-,"

"AND THAT BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY NAINSBURYS SUPERMARKET, TRY SOMETHING RECENT TODAY."

"That megaphone is a major buzz killer." Flora laughed a little and then sighed again, looking towards the fireworks. Helia looked back at her.

"I'm sorry this hasn't been perfect, I should have taken you somewhere a bit more-,"

"Helia, come on! I had a great time… It's just that, well… It's going to be hard to get used to this, and it's really crowded here. We can do something a little more private next tim-,"

"THIS STUNNING SPIRAL IS FROM FOREVER 26, I THINK THEY SELL CLOTHES."

"There's going to be a next time?"

"I hope so."

~.~.~

_Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Three months since the last one, golly… Anywa-_

'_SCHMAYBE SHE'S BORN WITH IT, SCHMAYBE ITS SCHMAYBELLINE'_

… _Anyway, please let me know what you think!_


	14. Chapter 14

So I finally updated the summary.

**Anything For You**

"FLORA! WAIT! NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Stella dramatically ran down the school corridor yelling at the brunette who was about to leave the building.

"WHAT?! What? Stella? What is it?" Flora jumped as Stella crashed into her.

"You forgot your Biology assignment." She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her shiny red handbag and handed to Flora. "You are extremely welcome, anyway, gotta fly!" She nodded proudly and began to walk away.

"Wait wait wait, Stell, do you wanna walk home with me?" She asked quickly. Stella turned on her heels and gave Flora a sly look.

"It's a shame Helia decided to take up football half way through the year." She cooed.

"It had to be just after I moved back." Flora sighed.

"Well that's got to be because since you moved back Helia hasn't gotten half as much exercise!" Stella finished with a loud laugh. Flora stared back at her for a moment.

"Was that a joke?"

"Uh, yeah…"

"I didn't get it." Flora shook her head.

"I-uh… Mmm, never mind." Stella laughed again. "Okay, lets go! We can stop by Bloom's house on the way back.

"… Stella, Bloom's got that after school cooking club right now, hasn't she?" Flora asked as they started to walk.

"Like I would forget about that," Stella scoffed.

"Why are we going to her house then?"

"Her parents let me raid their fridge without asking."

"… How about we just go to my house for a bit,"

"Okay sure, why not?" Stella took Flora's arm and they started to walk out of the building. "It sure is cloudy today, it's such a shame, I wanted to the tower with Brandy tonight, but we can't, because it's so cloudy." Stella sighed.

"You could always go to that fountain," Flora suggested.

"What fountain?"

"You know, the red fountain outside the park,"

"That's no good, they always turn it off in cold and windy weather,"

"This wind is even worse than the autumn wind!" Flora groaned.

~.~.~

"You know, your house isn't as small as I thought it would be," Stella said as she pulled a can of cola out of Flora's fridge. "Winix," Stella read off the front of the fridge,"

"What did you say? Winx?"

"The hell is winx?" Stella said, "Just being a typical label whore and looking at companies again," she shrugged.

"Uh, okay…" Flora said slowly, she sitting at the kitchen island with her mum. Her mum turned and looked at her slowly.

"Thanks for bringing Stella over, Flora, she's quite the charmer."

"Oh I know," Stella sat down, "People say that all the time!" she said innocently. Flora sniggered.

"So, you were the girl who had the surprise party at the club shortly after we moved," Julianna snapped her fingers. "I've heard a lot about you,"

"Seriously?" Stella grinned. Julianna nodded.

"Everyone who's mentioned you has described you as 'sunny', and now I can see why," she laughed.

"Well aren't you just the sweetest!" Stella exclaimed as she swallowed down the rest of her can, threw it in the bin and grabbed Flora's hand. "I wanna see your room now, bye Miss Linphea!" she said as she pulled Flora upstairs.

"I AM MARRIED YOU KNOW!" Julianna called back.

~.~.~

"Hey, I had a really weird dream last night," Flora told Stella.

"Please tell," Stella sat down on her bed, not looking particularly interested.

"Well, I dreamt that the six of us girls were fairies. We went to a magic school a bit like Hogwarts but for girls, and we fought a lot of witches and monsters and stuff from another magic school that was evil, oh, and the guys went to another school for superheroes. But, the weird thing was that five of us were sort of transparent and two-dimensional, and my subconscious only really seemed interested in Bloom's development. She had just found out the she was a fairy, you see, and she was determined to find her real parents and save her planet. Anyway, I just remember that we were in your enormous closet choosing an outfit for you to wear for a date with Brandon, and then we smelt burning. We ran to the kitchen, and I grabbed a fire extinguisher, I don't know why a magic school would need one though, and I tripped and fell and the foam went everywhere and Musa rapped about an omelette and then I woke up." Flora said in one breath. Stella blinked a couple of times after watching her talk. She shook her head slowly.

"Your imagination Flora. Like I could be two-dimensional." She said, "You know, I had a dream last night too,"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I was underwater in some random place and there were these really tiny fish people that kept talking to me, and they seemed really excited to see me, and they kept telling me that someone called Tritannus wanted the pillar of light, whatever that is. And then I went back up to the surface and I realised that my legs were covered in scales, it was really weird."

"Huh"

"OH. MY. GOD." Stella jumped up and gawped at Flora's wardrobe.

"What?" Flora asked from her bed.

"CAN I BORROW THESE?"

"You're not holding anything…"

"I MEANT EVERYTHING!"

"Uhm, I'm not being rude but… No…" Flora said slowly.

"WHY NOT?!"

"I need clothes to wear, which is what those clothes are for, and if I gave them to you I wouldn't have any clothes to wear…"

"So?"

"So, I don't want to walk around naked. You can borrow- wait. No. You're not allowed to borrow anything until I talk to Bloom."

"What? Whhhhhyyyy?" She whined.

"I want to see if she still has her full wardrobe." Said Flora. Stella groaned and slammed the wardrobe shut. She slumped over to Flora's desk and picked up and a green diary covered in pink flowers. Flora wasn't paying attention; she was checking her phone for texts from a certain someone.

Stella picked up the book and flipped through the pages, her eyes grew. She turned to Flora.

"YOU LIKE HELIA?!" Flora jumped and threw her phone across the room, she ran over to the blonde and pried the book out of her hands, and then she stuffed it under her pillow.

"What did you say?" She panted.

"I saw it in that diary, in terrible hand writing by the way. You're not seven Flora!"

"I WAS seven when I wrote that though!" Flora sighed. "I found the diary in a time capsule I buried with Helia years ago."

"… So, you liked him when you were seven?"

"No- well, yes- well… I never really stopped liking him…"

"Wait! You _still_ like him?" Stella asked quietly. Flora nodded. "Uhm… Do you know if he likes you back?" Flora nodded again. "Well? Does he?"

"Yes… Well, I think so, but lately it's like he's been trying to avoid me… Especially with this whole new football thing."

"Are you sure he likes you?"

"He was the one who told me that he liked me! We went out on one date, and we've hardly communicated since." Flora said sadly.

"Wow, why didn't you guys tell me?"

"I told Layla, but we wanted to keep it a secret until we knew if this relationship was actually going to go anywhere, we didn't want to hype anything up unnecessarily."

Stella sighed and looked out the window. A car pulled up at the house next door and Helia jumped out. Stella ran out of Flora's room, out the front door, grabbed Helia by his ear and pulled him back up to Flora's room.

"OW! STELLA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Helia exclaimed, "Err… Hey Flora,"

"Hey," Flora squeaked. "Stella," she hissed. Helia pulled himself out of Stella's grip.

"You guys should talk," Stella stated simply, then left, but not before stealing a skirt out of Flora's wardrobe.

…

"So." Flora finally said, "How was football?"

"Oh yeah, it was fun," Helia smiled, taking a seat at the end of her bed, "Nabu has been bugging me to join for a while, so I thought I might as well get the whole trying out for the team thing over with."

"Cool."

"How was… Stella?"

"She raided my fridge, made an odd impression on my mum, read my diary and stole my skirt. So, a good day for her." Flora laughed.

"Read your diary?" Helia raised an eyebrow.

"Well… She sort of read some stuff about… You…"

"You wrote about me?" Helia grinned, Flora kicked him.

"Maybe a little, don't get so full of yourself." She huffed. Helia smiled slightly and took her hand gently in his.

"We should go on a second date, something a little more private?" he suggested, playing with her fingers.

"Definitely, but where?" Flora smiled.

"Wherever you want to go, I'm too tired to think," he put his face in one of her pillows. Flora slapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm not done with you, lazy bones… Hey, look," Flora pointed out the window. Snow was delicately falling out of the sky, the flakes being illuminated by the street lamps.

"It just stopped snowing last week," Helia sighed.

"We could… Go out now… What do you think?" Flora asked quietly.

"What? Right now?" Helia raised an eyebrow

"I know your tired, but we could just go to the park, it'll be really quiet by now."

"Sure, why not," he smiled, "It'll be nice,"

"Okay!" Flora beamed, "Go home and change, you smell, and I'll meet you outside in ten!"

"Careful Flo, if you're not nice to me I'll leave you my socks,"

"_You wouldn't,_" Flora narrowed her eyes at him. "You have ten minutes! GO!"

~.~.~

"You were right, it's silent,"

The two of them stood in the centre of the park's football pitch, watching the sky as the snow fell on to the ground.

"I'm sorry I haven't seen you all that much recently, I guess everything got on top of me." Helia apologised.

"I understand, don't worry about it, just make sure to keep talking to me, so I know something isn't wrong." Flora smiled at him. Helia sighed again and smiled back.

"You have a beautiful smile, Flora," she instantly turned away, a moment when it's hard to make eye contact. She felt Helia's gloved hand wrap around her own,

"H-hey, Helia? We're at a point where I would get upset if you started to date another girl, and you wouldn't be happy if I started flirting with or seeing other guys, right?"

"Well… Yeah,"

"So, we're exclusive now?"

"Yeah,"

~.~.~

_I want to congratulate everyone who found all the 'subtle' Winx references in this chapter._


End file.
